markings 2019

2 channel video installation

Artists have used the stone walls as canvases for millennia. Ancient Native Americans created pictographs and petroglyphs on canyon walls and rock faces that documented their lives. These markings are thought to represent hunting practices, spiritual rituals, territorial boundaries, trade routes, and celestial maps. Rich windows into societies around the world continue today through the work of contemporary street artists who paint on the walls of urban structures. It is a way for many without opportunity to reclaim public space and explore their cultures. Many cities are home to culturally diverse artists. They are working side by side to illuminate urgent issues such as degradation and destruction of the environment, nuclear proliferation and waste, vanishing water, water rights, Native and Indigenous land rights, cultural, racial and gender biases, immigration and the border.
Carlisle and Hamilton created and presented an installation of video projections that kindle awareness of “wall art.” They videoed ancient rock art at sites around Santa Fe and in the Galisteo Basin. La Cieneguilla, 12 miles from Santa Fe, has over 4,400 examples, the largest site in the American West. Images date from 8,000 BC to the 17th century. The artists also have documented graffiti and street art from diverse urban environments. They combine and set in motion images from the ancient and contemporary wallworks to create not only a world of gesture, color and content from different eras and cultures, but also – most importantly – to shine a light on an overlooked thread of southwestern art and contemporary wallworks from around the world.