BLUEMING, 2016, Blooms Of Hesperides exhibition. Dimensions: 10m x 2.4m x 3.5m
Hundreds of gilded, dried and hand-dyed apple slices are pinned to the wall and threaded onto a taut, cotton string. Surrounded by a mass of stainless steel knife blades, they burst into space forming a large bloom-like shape with black tendrils that pull the audience towards it.
Expanding on an ongoing Apple of Discord project, Blueming installation continues a spatial investigation into the historical and psychological role of the symbolic apple.
The apple motif carries a range of metaphorical and emotional connotations that have accrued throughout history to become archetypal.
It is a symbol that has appeared in various narratives such as Garden of Eden, Snow White and numerous Greek myths such as Apple of Discord and Atalanta and Melanion race.
By engaging with it spatially and materially, the work aims to unravel the latent psychological impression that the apple motif carries. It considers how the role of the apple in storytelling - as symbol, allegory and metaphor - can laterally speak to current issues pertaining to consumption and depressive emotional states; the darker realities of labour producing luxury goods; the nefarious qualities of the gift and to caution against the seductively packaged object.