juicy fruit

This series features large-scale photographs of waxed fruit—plastic stand-ins for nature—set against bold, saturated backdrops. Water droplets are added to heighten realism, creating tension between what appears fresh and what is undeniably artificial. The visual language draws on the aesthetic of early childhood readers, where bright colours and simplified images were used to teach the basics of language and recognition.

Each image is accompanied by a short, intuitive text—five words or fewer—reflecting a free-associative response to the subject. These phrases echo the brevity and ambiguity of emojis and hashtags, functioning as modern glyphs with layered or double meanings. The result is a visual-textual system that blurs the lines between sincerity, irony, innocence, and innuendo.

Rooted in semiotic theory, the work examines how signs operate—how an object, word, or image can shift between meanings depending on the context. Once rich in symbolic value, fruit becomes a floating signifier: kitsch, commodity, emoji. This project examines the evolving landscape of communication in a post-literate, image-saturated culture, where symbols often convey meaning more loudly and less clearly than words.