Blair Aiken

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Fall of Me Triptych [ 72” x 44” panels ] ·Carbon pencil and blackening watercolors made from captured industrial carbon, with inks on paper mounted to canvas ·[ 2017–2026 ]

The mask of temptation and denial, when humanity began to hide their true self.

This triptych explores the moment temptation and rupture first appear. In the central panel, Adam kneels before the apple in blind worship while Eve turns away in distraction. Between them coils the skull-masked serpent. The black-and-white panels appear as painted marble sculptural figures — one covering her ears, the other holding her tongue — deepening the quiet fracture of denial.

This is the beginning of the masks: the refusal to see, to hear, and to speak truth to one another. The bite of the apple brings not only knowledge, but the first painful separation.

Studio view, or related works: blairaiken@raincage.com

Inspiration & Personal Connection

This painting draws inspiration from Michelangelo’s monumental fresco *The Fall and Expulsion from the Garden of Eden* on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. I first encountered the work while living in Italy.

Michelangelo’s masterpiece captures the dramatic moment of temptation and expulsion — the serpent offering the fruit, Adam and Eve reaching out, and the anguished departure from paradise. In the psychological interpretation of the Garden of Eden story, the "mask" refers to the fig leaves that Adam and Eve use to cover their nakedness after eating the forbidden fruit. This act symbolizes the birth of shame, self-consciousness, and the creation of a false persona (or ego) to hide their true selves, both from each other and from the divine. In my version, I reimagine this biblical scene through my own lens of rupture, consequence, and the search for hope amid the fall, while adding the eastern art influence see, hear, speak no evil from the sculptures at the Tosho-gu shrine in Nikko Japan.

After a painful divorce, my experience from the pain, and shame that followed that temptation where others filled my families world with what they thought, saw, heard, and spoke. While others chose denial, over unmasking.

The blackening layers trace the weight of that original choice, the slow accumulation of consequences, and the enduring human struggle between innocence, sin, and knowledge. Yet even in the moment of expulsion, a faint light persists — a quiet reminder that every fall carries within it the possibility of return, redemption, or deeper understanding.

Studio view, or related works: blairaiken@raincage.com

Dark yet hopeful.

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