...It is perhaps no coincidence, then, that at the retrospective Korzhev's "Don Quixote" series leads into his biblical cycle. The artist turned to subjects from the Old and New Testaments following the death of his parents in 1986. For Korzhev the thinker, with his wealth of life experience, the main focus of this significant new development in his creative endeavor was to capture the internal logic of the story, based on the moral and ethical views that determine human actions. Most works of the biblical series are highly charged with the dramatic significance of events that have taken place, or are being anticipated - such as "Judas" (1987-1993, private collection, USA) or "Carrying the Cross" (1999, collection of the artist's family, Moscow). Amid the pain and suffering, however, Korzhev suggests that there is a place for love. For instance, "Deprived of Paradise" (1998, private collection, USA) is filled with intensely intimate emotion: Adam bears Eve in his arms as if she were the most precious thing on Earth. (http://www.tretyakovgallerymagazine.com/articles/3-2016-52/gely-korzhev-i-have-right) "Deprived of Paradise" (1998) is one of the most emotionally powerful paintings of the biblical cycle: Korzhev brings the dramatic expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise into a world of emotions and experiences more comprehensible to the contemporary viewer. The composition of the picture somewhat resembles a still from a big Hollywood film: the hero carries the heroine in his arms over a parched, cracked, battlefield-like land. The two characters are separated from the landscape in the background by a huge distance; nothing links them to it. The composition of the painting echoes its title almost literally: paradise is lost, the well being and happiness that it brought are gone. The future is full of uncertainty and unceasing trials of life. (http://www.tretyakovgallerymagazine.com/articles/3-2016-52/gely-korzhev-biblical-cycle-hard-steps-towards-truth)