This painting brings together visual languages drawn from different periods of the artist’s life. At its center is a Japanese dragon claw, surrounded by fragmented forms inspired by Mesoamerican imagery, including references sourced from the Codex Yohualli Ehecatl. These historical images became part of the artist’s vocabulary during the years he lived in Mexico, where he immersed himself in Indigenous traditions, imagery, language, and culture.

The dragon claw originates from an earlier chapter. After leaving art school, the artist apprenticed with a Japanese tattoo master, spending several years studying the traditions and visual language of Irezumi, or Japanese full-body tattooing. The experience left a lasting imprint on his understanding of line, symbolism, and the body as a surface for storytelling.

Years later, after selling their possessions and moving to Mexico, the artist and his wife began a radically different period of their lives. There, his encounters with the richness of Indigenous Mexican history and culture introduced another visual language—one that felt particularly powerful to someone who had grown up without a strong sense of cultural heritage of his own.

Throughout the composition, these references mingle with imagery drawn from memory and the artist’s immediate surroundings. Triangular forms suggest mountains; circles resemble archery targets; red marks beneath the claw evoke dragon scales; a black scribble becomes an evergreen tree; and blue gestures reference the Columbia River, near where the artist lives and works.

None of these elements were initially assembled according to a fixed narrative. Their meaning became clearer only after the painting was complete. Looking back at the finished work, the artist began to see it as his own contemporary interpretation of an ancient image-making tradition—a personal kind of cave painting in which cultures, places, memories, and symbols encountered throughout his life are compressed into a single visual language.