# 25 from 100 pictures book - Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve, 1997
Oil on canvas
72" X 92" (2 panels)

I’ve always liked how this painting turned out and I find the story behind it’s construction is just as interesting as the picture itself.

One of the most interesting parts of the story was that during it’s construction, I moved to a new studio just down the street. I had completed the Adam portion of the picture (right side) and was forced to hold the image of Eve in my head for 6 months while I waited for my new studio to be set up. This was a bit complicated as I did not have any sketches of Eve to reference.  Since I wanted to construct the figures right on the canvas, there were very few sketches done beforehand.

The idea for this picture came about during a time when I was preparing to get married. I had been thinking about my own experiences of how men and women interact and form relationships and I felt that I wanted to somehow talk about that.  This made me ask myself, if I'm going to make a painting of the first man and woman, when in their lives would it be most interesting to portray? I knew it was going to be a new experience to get married and the idea of being very new to something caught my attention.  So I created these two figures at almost the moment of their creation.  So new to the world that they were unaware of their own nakedness let alone their surroundings. So new, that their skin has yet to fully form and all eyes are not yet open.  Although they share the same space, I put them on separate canvases to reinforce the idea that although they make up one picture, they are still very much separate beings.

Among the figures I decided to place a few references to artists and ideas that I had been working with in previous pictures. Each selected for the ideas that they bring to our understanding of the world. (see addition information below)

After this painting was finished, I did several other variations (but none this large). The Adam figure evolved into a stand alone figure in the series of Saturn portraits (see image #29, Saturn) and the idea of the two figures together reappears some years later as the Artist and Model series (see image #51, Artist and Model).

Additional information about the painting:

• The Adam figure is a figure just born. So new, that he has yet to develop a skin. So new, that his focus is on the “fig leaf” before realizing that it is purpose is for covering himself.
• Adam is holding onto a cane in his right hand. This cane had been used in previous pictures (see The Guide, image #1) and was a reference to the act of seeing (rather than just looking). Since The Guide cane is really a reference to me (the artist), giving this tool to Adam implies that Adam is me.
  
• Each of the four corners references specific artists that were very influential to me at the time. The swirl (resembling smoke) was a reference to late Matisse cutouts. The book and the table cloth with the cross-hatch pattern in the lower right hand corner is a reference to Jasper Johns. The candle (missing the flame) in the lower left corner was lifted from a Picasso painting. The open window with the rain spilling in is a reference to Van Gogh’s Rain painting (one of my all-time favorite paintings that resides in the Philadelphia Museum of Art just down the street from my studio).
  
• Eve’s left foot being under the green table is a suggestion that she is being viewed laying down from above. Her orange shadow suggests the possibility of pregnancy and underlines her femininity.
• The green table is the same table in both pictures which implies that although separate pictures, both figures are in the same space.