Acclaimed sculptor Simone Krok’s latest exhibition, Paradise Lost, is named after John Milton’s 17th-century epic poem and explores the crucial themes of Milton’s work: creation, the fall of man, the loss of innocence and of free will. Milton’s work was heavily influenced by the Old Testament and the story of Adam and Eve, and Krok also takes inspiration from the Old Testament, as well as other religious traditions. Many of the pieces in Paradise Lost are inspired by the Jewish spiritual practice of Kabbalah.

As a Jewish South African, much of Krok’s work has been influenced by the parallel injustices she witnessed in her early life, with the apartheid in her home country and the concentration camps she saw when she travelled to Eastern Europe. In this exhibition, Krok aims to explore why the human race ‘lose the innocence we were born with as children and why it is that we so frequently use our freedom of choice to enter into the destructive path of greed, power, violence and manmade suffering that is all too common in our modern world.’ Paradise Lost closes this Thursday, so be sure to catch it if you can.

By Alice Weleminsky-Smith

Paradise Lost runs until Thursday 18 June. Gallery 223, 137-139 Lower Marsh St, London SE1 7AE. www.gallery223.co.uk

Simone Krok poses by The Sequence of Many Levels of Deception (also pictured above)

(L-R) Bronze, Co-exist, Gold, Jacob's Ladder