After Eden

In AFTER EDEN, Crystal Tranquilino uses a linear and chronological order to represent our earthly desires and physical pleasures, inviting us to look more closely and proceed with an examination of ourselves and of our time. Drawing inspiration from Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, this series of work dissects the visual idiom of eschatology – whether one is blind to the corruption of God’s genesis or else goes through life in a dream vision, deluded by transient ecstasy, unaware of one’s impending demise. Here, Tranquilino investigates the notion of the retribution of humankind’s carnal desires which brings about the damnation of itself. Women being the centripetal force and prime archetype of man’s ultimate temptation, Tranquilino demands to challenge this limited perception about the enraptured savagery of such inclinations.

The three major canvases invite viewers to peel back to their many layers, each telling a story about the woman it depicts. Each painting has a gaping hole notably placed at the womb of the woman in each work, with each replaced by a mirror creating a strong visual impact that aims to reflect and immerse the viewer into the narrative it conveys. The spherical cut outs were rendered as separate artworks drawing inspiration from the outer panel of Bosch’s work. They all feature “eyes” as agents of entropy, gazing at a singularity that is beyond or perhaps inside the viewer. Still evident in all of the works is the presence of Tranquilino’s surreal vision of liquid meets flesh with its varying viscosity, opacity, and state illustrating the intensity of each thematic section. Notably, the shift from Tranquilino’s usual realism painting to impressionism on these works parallel the artist’s attempt to capture the essence of the work rather than represent it.

The works in this show renders symmetry and order to the composition of Bosch’s triptych and stresses the unity of the whole between all panels. In the “Temptress”, the downcast eyes of the woman render her irresistible and envisaging her as a decorative subject for admiration and temptation. Soaked in water symbolizing the fountain of life, the woman indulges in the perpetual creative power of nature. Alluring but rather ominous, as the presence of the serpent signals that malevolence has sprung into the world and the paradise is already permeated with potential violence and evil.

The narrative is carried into the “War of the Womb” where the stage is set for excess and naked ecstasy has become the sensory realm of desire. The presence of animal creatures much like in Bosch’s work raises the idea of a chaotic and bestial living which mirrors sexual indulgence and the abolishment of hierarchies by disregarding the existence of moral codes. The visual stimulation is delectably voyeuristic albeit portrayed delicately – conferring empathetic dignity.

In “They Feast, We Fear”, the corruption of the body and mind is shown by the overflowing and irrepressible admission to indulgence. It sets an image of the retributive notion of justice and serves as a reminder of the consequences of one’s unriddled licentiousness leading to damnation and wreckage.

With the general understanding of how Bosch approached the design of his triptychs, Tranquilino confronts this idea of women as objects of pleasure to be dominated or consumed by shifting the focus on the viewer’s gaze as reflected in each work’s mirrored wombs. What one sees in each work is the spillover of the emotional underbelly of feminine existence – a nuanced, dynamic quest of femininity that balances asceticism and sensuality, strength and fragility, malleability but on one’s own terms and one that is not bounded to the domain of the female.

(pictured above) “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch