‘Seven Senior Citizens’. Drawn in situ from a frieze of seven stone Buddhas at Aurangabad, India, reflected on the cave floor. Drawings (four images).
‘Seven Senior Citizens’
I visited the man-made caves at Aurangabad in India where a frieze of seven identical Buddhas carved into the back wall. To facilitate working in the dark caves, the 7th century sculptors reflected light from the entrance by flooding the cave-floor before eventually draining the water away. I used seven pencils and the awkward results began a train of thought that generated these drawings. They attempt to re-imagine the seven Buddhas complete with their vanished reflections on the cave floor.
The elliptical shapes that appear across the drawing are markers, laid down, to guide my pencils. In the later drawings these ellipses mutated into the optical ‘floaters’ that I now experience. ‘Floaters’ are shadows on the retina caused by macular debris and are fairly common; here they develop in importance and definition, interrupting the view of the seated Buddhas.