Female Corporeality and Religion 2023
Online Art Exhibition
Adam and Eve
Volodymyr Slepchenko
The work performed in author's original technique “Artline”
Canvas, acrylic
190 x 100 cm
2017
Not For Sale
Description
Representations of the first biblical couple are universal in the Christian art. It was especially popular in the paintings of European masters starting from the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance and Baroque period. However there, Adam and Eve are always depicted as young, accompanied by the usual symbols of the tree, the fruit, and the serpent. Here they are represented as two people of advanced age. It is an artistic attempt to bridge the gap between archetypal biblical figures and ordinary people of every age with their hardships and tragedies. Here we see an ordinary family of husband, wife, and children, who all too often experience the tragedy that was already seen in the story of Adam and Eve: the drama of Cain (an outcast in exile) and Abel (the horizontal figure). Adam and Eve having lived many years of conjugal life together in joy and sorrow, love and suffering, huddle together, seeking mutual support and protection, because they are left alone. The painting style of this canvas consists of vertical and horizontal lines that form the shape of a cross. This points to the cross on which based on Christian tradition Jesus will accomplish his salvific sacrifice, after which Adam and Eve will rise from their graves.
Volodymyr Slepchenko
In his work, academician Volodymyr Slepchenko constantly returns to the theme of the female body in various cultural and sociological contexts.
Volodymyr Slepchenko (b. 1947) is a Ukrainian painter, graphic and monumental artist, and master of psychological portraiture. He works in the artistic orientation of romantic symbolism, inventing his own technique and unique artline style. People's Artist of Ukraine, Honored Artist of Ukraine, academician. Head of the Department of Culture and Arts and Academician of the World Academy of Arts (MONDIAL ART ACADEMIA), France.
He has participated in numerous regional, national, foreign and international exhibitions. He is the winner of many national and international awards, including the Botticelli Prize in 2019. Since 1970, he has held more than 80 personal exhibitions in Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany, Canada, Israel, Slovakia, Italy, Greece, Spain, Japan and other countries. He was a participant in the group exhibition of Ukrainian artists "Autumn Salon-90" in Paris (France) in 1990.
Volodymyr Slepchenko's paintings and graphic works are held in museums, galleries and private collections in Ukraine and in many countries of the world. Since 2005, the portrait of the Grand Master of the Order of Malta Andrew Bertie has been on permanent display at the Gallery of Portraits of Grand Masters in Malta. Since 2018, the painting "The Great Baptism" has found a place of honor in the permanent exhibition on the second floor of the main shrine of Ukraine - St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.
For more than 50 years, the artist has been fruitfully working in various types and genres of fine arts, but among the main works of the artist are paintings on historical themes from the Trypillia era to the present.
