This petroglyph tableau exemplifies visual abstraction of oral concepts. Communication transmission depends on a lost prehistoric dictionary. These engraved symbols tantalize our imaginations but remain beyond our reach like an empty hyperlink. [Kamilo, Ka'u]
Petroglyphs and me…preface
[Warning! not for everyone, artistic license in use, suicide wall, [requires +10 minutes]
During the past 7 years[1997-2004], I spent hours and miles in the lava fields of Ka’u, following old foot trails and documenting my own wonder and surprise at what is underfoot, hidden in the open, forgotten by most. This study has spawned an extensive series of artworks in response to my perceptions and experiences of these ancient Rock Art sites.
A sampling of these images is included on this website. The culmination of this process has been the creation of a Digital Library of images accessible in DVD format. Learn more..
Except where otherwise noted all photographs and mistakes by the author.
No Commercial Reproduction allowed without written permission of the artist.
© Wes Bogner 2004
Part 1:
Early after arriving on the Big Island and visiting the Pu’u Loa site in Volcanoes National Park I got very excited, became obsessive and began consuming all available literature on Hawaiian petroglyphs, purchasing maps, and planning hike logistics, camera requirements, etc. My fascination with the Rock Art of Hawai’i began to infect my dreams and artwork. Symbols of forgotten content, Images with lost meanings was a theme that attracted me as a metaphor of contemporary experience.
I was awed by the grandeur and mystery carved simply with linear elegance in stone and time. As an artist I was intrigued by the composite design built by individual glyphs overwriting one another until a large scale earth mural was created. I also soon realized that one photograph could not capture the entirety of a site or even a single petroglyph. Nuances of light and shadow color the lava, hiding or revealing details depending on the camera angle and direction of reflective surfaces.
Because of my experiences in the field I found my art changing as my perceptions and definitions of imagery and symbology became colored by the spectral surfaces upon which they were engraved. The background behind the petroglyph image, the supporting surface was the earth beneath my feet. The volcanic bones of the planet were the source material, the primeval canvas where these ancient ideas were projected. Here they found their orientation by gravity where meaning was dependent on perspective. This was landscape art without a conventional horizon line. There was an inside / outside duality visible between the symbols and their meanings. The line was a dimensional threshold drawing a window into another time.
As in everything in life, questions take you farther than answers and this is what I discovered about Petroglyphs and these people who left their marks on our history. Their footpaths worn into the memory of this land. Old Ones with forgotten names, those Lost Legends came before the ones we remember. An oral history disappears with no one to voice it, and no way to write it down.
No one’s singing the songs of the bird-headed people we see depicted or telling the genealogy of families long since swallowed by time. The rock art images we can still see are our only connection to the conceptual perceptions held by the first petroglyph-making immigrants who landed on these shores and carved out a home, apparently with difficulty and success. We can look, touch, and imagine this culture with some accuracy by correlating artifacts and archeological evidence. From Nihoa and Necker Islands to South Point, Hawai’i data has been recovered and analyzed providing proofs or at least insights into the migrations and arrivals of oceanic peoples to these islands which became known in historic times as the Hawaiian archipelago. next..
Back to Top of Page HOME Part 2