Eve/The Fall of Man

I worked on the painting “The Fall of Man” for two “falls.” 

What started as a simple, life-size portrait of my daughter and a chicken in our autumnal backyard, became Eve in the Garden of Paradise populated by over 25 beasts. Eve in the Garden has long been the subject of artists drawn to paint not only a gorgeous landscape with many animals but also, perhaps, an alluring, nude, wicked woman. 

A woman, imbued with power and danger in a landscape with animals, is a subject that interests me.

I worked as the seasons changed, fall came around again, and the painting evolved.

From Rubens’ and Jan Brueghel’s 1615 painting “Fall of Man” I took the title and two lolling tigers and found the freedom to insert any animal I wished, including bats, a panda, and an albino deer.

From Renaissance paintings of Madonna I took an overhanging dove, a symbol of purity and innocence.

My girl became both Madonna and Eve. Simultaneously a temptress and an innocent with a backyard chicken, the fall of man is laid at her feet.

Painted elements like the curtain and birds extend into the viewer’s space, bringing him into the Garden with Eve. The viewer is in the heart of the painting, implicated.

The layers of paint on the surface of the canvas evoke the passage of time and the evolving meaning of a female character depicted by artists for centuries; an evolution that I contribute to with a purpose defined by my biology and history.