2019
Mixed Media
420x175x30 cm
In his series titled “Backyard of God”, the artist interprets the story of the Garden of Eden not as a tale of the origins of sin and death, but as a tale of the chance of immortality humans briefly had but quickly lost. The main themes of the story of the Garden of Eden are goodness, evilness, and immortality. It is because Adam and Eve ate the fruits of the tree of life and were expelled from the heavens where they would live forever. The chance of immortality was thereby lost. This does not mean that the story was written out of longing for immortality. On the contrary, the story suggests the acceptance of mortality.
Mortality has been, from the beginning of time, a characteristic of human life, and the very rare exceptions do not alter that fact. The same was true for Homer. There were very exceptional cases where a mortal was granted immortality. But this did not make any difference: all humans were well aware that death awaited them, and the tables wouldn’t turn. Adam and Eve were not immortal beings who fell into a place where they had to die because they had sinned; they were mortal beings who had a remote and momentary chance of eternal life but gained this chance only accidentally, and again, because of an accident, were deprived of that same chance. By thus rationalizing the events, the artist approaches through his works the entire question of life and death, and the naturalness and potentiality of both concepts in human life.