HANDS
HANDS speaks to my fascination with questions of human evolution—the hand’s grasp, the significance of the opposable thumb, manual dexterity as precursor or consequence of higher-order thinking and artistic expression. What were the evolutionary effects of defying gravity (or not) in high forest canopies? Of raising the spine to free the arms in order to scan a horizon as predator or prey? Of seizing an object for self-defense, cradling an ember burning in a grassland after an electric storm passes, marking presence on rock or cave walls or offering apotropaic objects in burials to the deceased? The images above interest me for their evidence of hands’ activities as both the informers and the tools of the mind’s curiosity and complexity—this constant interplay between the cognitive and the manual.
