Seattle artist and early LGBTQ activist Donald (Dawn) Paulson did this gouache in 1959, before he went to New York and became involved in Pop Art and Andy Warhol's "The Factory", returning to Seattle in 1966.
The abstracted composition evokes the feeling of a cave wall with painted pictographs by ancient civilizations which have been protected from the elements and future mankind for centuries. Traces of creative human existence preserved for history.
Don Paulson often went by the name "Dawn" (such as this painting) among his friends and contemporaries, and, occasionally, "Whitey Boom" in connection with his paintings.