ABOUT

“Magdalenian Suite” is an ongoing body of work based on research I conducted in early 2025, when I traveled to France to study Paleolithic cave paintings. The research for this project combines my personal experience withfound video and photography, archival materials, and existing documentation of the six caves I visited in the Vézère Valley of the Dordogne region. The title of the body of work is a nod to the artists who made the cave paintings: the Magdalenian people were prehistoric hunter-gatherers who lived in this region of France during the Upper Paleolithic, approximately 17,000 to 12,000 years ago. My paintings reinterpret cave imagery by presenting the caves and the paintings as one artistic expression.

Encountering these sacred ancestral sites in person left me with a completely fresh understanding of the origin of art, the primordial human instinct to make marks, and the lineage of artistic creation through time. The Paleolithic paintings and drawings respond to the cave walls, textures, formations -they are curved, stretched, rounded, overlapped, and tucked in. My new paintings are up-close investigations of the cave walls and formations that the paleolithic paintings were on. I aim to evoke the bodily sensation of moving through the winding caves, integrating gestural abstraction, and pictographic motifs that mirror the caves’ surfaces. The paintings feature cracked surfaces, veins, and undulating forms reminiscent of geological reliefs found in cave walls. In Paleolithic cave art, artists often incorporated the relief and texture of the cave’s rock walls into their imagery, responding to natural protrusions and fissures as integral aspects of their creative process. This interplay signifies a profound receptivity to both environment and material, mirroring the ancient approach of letting geological features shape the artwork itself.

Erika Jaeggli (born in Baltimore, MD) is a Dallas-based artist whose practice centers on the exploration and research of cave systems. Working across painting, digital photography, and installation, she investigates alternative perspectives of landscape through the lens of caves.

Jaeggli earned a B.A. in Art History from Columbia University, an M.A. from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Interactive Telecommunications Program, and an M.F.A. in Drawing and Painting from the University of North Texas. Her work has been exhibited in Texas, Florida, California, Maryland, Arkansas, and Missouri, and has been featured in Southwest Contemporary, New American Paintings and Studio Visit Magazine.

She has participated in residencies at Cuttyhunk Island, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Jentel Foundation, VCCA Moulin à Nef, and forthcoming Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Jaeggli is a recipient of the Dozier Travel Grant from the Dallas Museum of Art and a TACA Pop-Up Grant.

In addition to her studio practice, Jaeggli serves on the advisory council of Texas Vignette, a nonprofit supporting women in the arts in Texas. She has taught at the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of North Texas, and the University of Texas at Arlington, and has led art education programs at the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and the Kimbell Art Museum. She is currently a lecturer at Dallas College. In addition to her art practice, she is an active caver and a member of the National Speleological Society and DFW Grotto.