Adam
This painting depicts a male figure embodying both the act of creation and the pending decomposition. Life, in both its presence and absence, is captured by the ostensibly unstable structure of twine, either forming or deforming.
Furthermore the glorious process by which flesh is created through intricate weaving is contrasted with the shame of its nakedness. The relief which one experiences at this vulnerable figure’s clad speaks of more than the offence of the physically naked, but rather of the bareness of private thoughts and the exposure of secret motives. This universal fear of, and shame in, total exposure runs deeper that the physical realm and first presented itself in the Garden of Eden, as sin crept into human makeup.
In grappling with the nakedness of humanity before an omnipresent God the inability of self redemption is suggested as the armless composition lies defenceless. Adam is mercifully covered by the skin of the first sacrificed animal, and as this masking rests on the ‘cradle of mankind’ the intended atonement of the world is proposed
