Adam and Eve: A monumental sculpture by Glenn Marlowe   Photo credit: Jason River

Adam and Eve. Luscious yet hard, vile yet beautiful. This sculpture exhibits the unrelenting passion of the best Broadway choreography ever staged.

Mythology, religion, and science merge in celebration of humans existence on an isolated island. Who sculpted the first atom in this shrinking and expanding paradigm we call “Our Universe?â€

Being torn from Adam humanity begins. The aftermath of our departure from Eden was a strict unyielding divorce; the divorce from the state where no shame, no knowledge and no passion existed.

“Adam and Eve saw that they were naked, and they became afraid. Unconscious denial of their animal nature set in very quickly. The threat that they might be taken over by powerful instinctual drives and revert back to complete unconsciousness was indeed a very real one. Shame and taboos appeared around certain parts of the body and bodily functions, especially sexuality. The light of their consciousness was not yet strong enough to make friends with their animal nature, to allow it to be and even enjoy that aspect of themselves — let alone to go deeply into it to find the divine within it, the reality within the illusion. So they did what they had to do. They began to disassociate from their body. They now saw themselves as having a body, rather than just being itâ€. – Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

Adam

Adam’s pose is inspired by one of 20 mysterious male nude figures called “Ignudi†painted on the Sistine Chapel.

The Sistine Chapel. Photo credit: Franco Origlia

The “Ignudi†(a phrase coined by Michelangelo), are depicted on 5 panels on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Adam’s pose is derived from one of the Ignudi perched in the corner of the Sacrifice of Noah.

By Michelangelo – present version is derived from earlier version, with color cast adjusted, however this version may appear too blue, reference link: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sistine_Chapel_ceiling.

In Eve’s pose (as in many of Glenn’s sculptures), the viewer perceives a precursor or catalyst which led to a theatrical moment captured in a pose. Eve’s pose is dynamic, unconventional, and reminiscent of an expulsion. Adam and Eve: a monumental sculpture by Glenn Marlowe is a contemporary spin on a legendary subject depicted throughout the history of art.

The Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden from the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo.

Adam and Eve by Albrecht Durer