Sunday, January 11, 2015

The Triptych



Here I present the  text and oil paintings for my Tryptich, "A Midrash on Time," which I began in the Summer of 2014 and completed in 2015. The Triptych consists of three large oil paintings and two documents, one in Hebrew and one in English, presenting the midrash and the (completely apocryphal) biblical passages on which it is "based"--as well as apocryphal Talmudic discussion and disputation. 

The midrash grows out of my  wonder and disturbance at the very existence of time—of how the essence of things, which to my mind must be eternal, seems to escape from under us because each moment passes and disappears.  My midrash considers the “null hypothesis” that there is no time at all and draws out the implications of time’s creation.

Genesis Apocrypha 1-6

1 God had formed the firmament, the great lights, the garden,

2 And man and woman, back to back.
3 They were summoned before God to help choose.
4 But Adam and Eve fled from the garden  with the flowers of time,
5 Into a land of ancient olive trees, cliffs and stones,

6 And died, with their image as their share in eternity.

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