:: 2011 :: 90cm x 90cm :: Acrylics, Inks, Markers and UV Lacquer on Canvas ::
This is the second dual-image day/night artwork I created after Gaia - this medium uses my usual acrylics, inks and markers to create a mandala image seen under normal daylight. However, when the image is illuminated by ultraviolet light, a second image - the night image - is revealed. In this work, I wanted to envisage Eternity as existing outside time, in illo tempore as Mircea Eliade called it, with a vision of the beginning of time enfolded within it.
Here, then, we see Adam and Eve dancing in around the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden in the eternal time of dreaming before time began. In some ways, though, elements of time are seen: the four calendrical animals at each corner (deer for spring, leopard for summer, eagle for autumn and owl for winter) and the flow of the river from mountain to maelstrom. The Tree winds around itself suggestive of serpents and DNA, and snakes emerge from the branches to offer the apple. This is the last moment of Eternity.
In the night image, we are greeted with the images of Eve and Adam transformed. Their eternal moment is now transformed into time by their eating of the apples, their innocent dance is now sexualised by the carnlity expressed in their eyes. The Tree now becomes two serpents entwined, symbols of transformation, of love and of the unfolding of Time. A subtle point here is that by day they dance together, and by night they initiate Time by eating apples together: this artwork seeks to challenge that toxic myth that Eve should be blamed for her deceitful behaviour, and that woman kind should be denigrated for all eternity. No. Creation is created together, as an act of joy.
:: Hover the mouse over the image to flip between daylight and UV images ::
:: Tablet Users - Tap the image to see the UV Image::
:: Tap outside the image to return to the Daylight Image::
