Description

Though it took a million strokes of a hammer and chisel to carve out the great city of Petra from its pure sand stone cliffs two thousand years ago, Gonsalves recognizes and depicts the much greater force of nature in this painting: in this piece, we see a group of monks and holy men working diligently to create their seemingly well-protected homes intertwined throughout the cliffs; yet, from afar, and perhaps over time, we also see the greater forces of mother earth, of weather and water, as they forever have and forever will erode and crumble our great manmade creations. The imagery here is not wholly fatalistic, however, as the painting also evokes the beauty in canyons and cliffs that nature creates and re-creates, so that we may build, and build again – the eternal cycle, separation and unification of humankind and our natural world.