CAROLINE DAVIES - ARTIST'S STATEMENT
Our world is strewn with mysterious, sacred and historic sites. The landscape cradles its open windows to our ancient past for us to speculate in wonder upon, yet there are sacred sites thousands of years old, where just about every stone will reveal remarkable information about its builders and their understanding of mathematics, geometry and archeoastronomy.
Our monuments contain, both in their dimensions and their relative geographical postiions, the whole vocabulary of the sacred language of the past. Mathematical masterpieces such as the Great Pyramid of Cheops, Stonehenge and Teotihuacan were built by men who knew something of the laws which govern the flow of living energy and their application to the development of life on earth.
Each nation in our recorded history appears to have gone through its own unique statement of spiritual expression. Some ancient (and contemporary) societies honored the creative force behind nature, rendering its temples from the forests, mountains and waterways, and with an uncanny awareness laid the foundations with which so many of our sacred sites are now situated. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Mayans have left an awe inspring lega cy of incredible architectural feats that leave our modern attempts at memorable construction rather feeble in comparison.
In a world where we so easily put the importance of things over the inportance of people, we need to re-inspire and remind ourselved of the spiritual awareness and expression so necessary to a balanced life. The close of the millenia is a perfect time to gather images of our past, in the present, observing our spiritual growth in some areas and evaluating obvious decline in others.
Recording any period of history has a priceless value for future generations as well as our own. Today, we can appreciate the extraordinary language of mathemetics and geometry found resonating in the stone structure that remain. Every country in the world contains this same legacy. Perhaps we may discover that humanity has more in common at its roots than we currently think.
CAROLINE DAVIES - THE PHOTOGRAPHER
We are shown through Caroline Davies' eyes the unveiled face of nature in association with our enigmatic past. In her travels, Caroline records and studies the alliances with our world via the ancient remnants of architecture that maintains the mysteries of civlizations long gone.
In the field everything is worked out and organized. Caroline knows how to work in the most challenging of situations. Often such circumstances are the very vehicle that bring her these most extraordinary images, which she in turn presents to the public. There is also a great operation of chance in the natural elements that she is dealing with; the light, the moment, the environment.
Another aspect of her work is seen in her printing techniques. In Caroline's black and white photographs her individual interpretation continues on through the use of various papers and processes, as well as the application of hand tinting. It is fascinating to see how she goes the step beyond, allowing for experimentation and great spontaneity, resulting in an added vitality and crispness of her images.
On the other hand, Caroline delights in the spectacular colors made available by the combination of nature and ektachrome film, printing on Cibachrome paper and staying true to the results of the transparency itrself. Caroline prefers the challenge and adventure of creating the color imgae in the camera by being on location in the right place at the right time. This meticulously hand crafted work is of the highest calibre.
Caroline draw you into the magical realms of dawn and dusk, of ritual and the afterworld. She converys a certain kind of information that makes its way through to our subconscious. There is a kind of blurring about the edges of reality, presenting tangibility and solid reality on one hand and the evidence of mystical essences of the unseen on the other.
Everything matters that is remotely connected with her feelings, giving her work an immense depth. It is this extra sensitivity that links Caroline with the surrounding environmental energy, revealing in her images that nature and the ancient mysteries of man have an emotional life of their own. This work stirs an understanding in ourselves that there is a correlation between the past, present and future.
CAROLINE DAVIES - BIOGRAPHY
Caroline Davies is an international fine art and editorial photographer whose work has been exhibited in various galleries in the United States and found in private collections around the world. Caroline emerged as the expedition photographer and contributing producer of the controversial and Emmy award winning "Mystery of the Sphinx". Her work has been seen in Conde Nast Traveler, Newsweek, Time Life, Germany's "Notes" magazine, Britain's Marshall Cavendish publications and many other international publications. Commercially, her work has been used by Paul Mitchell, The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities Organization, The Luxor Museum, Egypt's Pullman Hotels, BBC T.V., NBC T.V., CBS TV, several documentary film and design companies, the Bexel Corporation and the British Tourist Authority.
Caroline's lecture venues include The Getty Conservation Institute, Trans World Airlines, The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism, Women in Travel, The Philisophical Research Society, The Royal Insitute of British Architects with the American Institute of Architects, The Sierra Club, and international architecural and urban planning company RTKL.
Recently, Caroline completed the in depth photographic essay "Britain's Ancient Heritage: Mankind's Spirituality Expressed Through Its Changing Architecture" - an adventure taken over many months and almost 14,000 miles around the extraordinary British Isles, Her sponsors included Trans World Airlines, The British Touris Authority, Kenning Car Rentals, Scottish P&O Shipping lines, Caledonian MacBrayne and many of Britain's finest small luxury hotels.
Caroline's current project "Mexico: Dawn, Dusk, Ritual and Afterlife" is documenting the sacred art and architecture of the ancient archeological sites, basillicas, missions and today's descendants of the master builders of Mexico. This project will be published by Balcony Press.