'Löwenmensch' Limited Edition Silk Twill Scarf 50 x 100cm

ALISON CONNEELY X UNFPA

Isabel Nolan - Löwenmensch

In response to transformation & Unity.

38,000 BCE to today

This image is drawn from the Löwenmensch (the Lion-human). Carved from a mammoth tusk around 40,000 years ago, this mysterious object has the head and forelimbs of a cave lion, and the legs and torso of a human. Lionhuman was reborn over decades, discovered in shards 1939 and subsequently reassembled by archaeologists several times into the belly buttoned creature that seems to greet us with a crooked smile today. Lionhuman joins animal and human; unites the earth and the sky, the real and the imaginary, the past and the present. They declare that the world is not merely what it appears to be. I imagine the Paleolithic sculptor(s) carrying it from place to place, cradling their creation, showing everyone they met the capacity for beautiful transformation that work and imagination gifts our species.