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Lascaux Redefined consisted of large scale collages of newspaper (the racing section), overpainted with white acrylic, overdrawn with large drawings of horses, and encased in polyester mesh. The works are comprised of multiple panels and were strung up as screens in the space. One work consisted of panels bound and interiorly lit to resemble a lantern. Two series of smaller, framed works were the artist's initial and final experiments with the central working concept of the exhibition- the symbology of the horse as it was selected by Somerville from the Lascaux cave drawings and reworked by her in the overdrawn imagery of the collaged works. The artist's private response to this ancient source is contextualised by the contemporary background of popular publicly circulating horse imagery-that found in the racing section of newspapers.
The contrast between the newspaper photographs of racing horses and Somerville's Lascaux-inspired drawings is a literal comment of the place of the horse (and implicitly other animals) in our society. Where 'primitive' cultures revere the horse, treating it with respect, endowing it mystical authority, contemporary Western culture has secularised and commodified the horse for profit. Art, for Somerville, is a material by-product of culture. Objects imbued with wider cultural uses, understandings, even rituals , become (as in the case of Lascaux) privileged sites of cultural knowledge. In this case, Somerville has recouped the material by-products of one of our cultural rituals (that is, the racing pages) and revealed in it the cultural knowledges it conceals.
The contrast between the newspaper photographs of racing horses and Somerville 's Lascaux-inspired drawings may also be read as a metaphoric comment on wider social relations. Somerville 's horses are all mares.1 In