Forbidden Fruit
Sonia L.
Oil on canvas
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With Forbidden Fruit, I wanted to explore the teleological narrative behind desire: want is rarely spontaneous, and it points toward a larger purpose. The hand offering a bitten “strawberry” echoes the Biblical moment of fatal temptation, but here the “tempter” is artificial. It represents the modern systems molding our impulses long before we name them. Algorithms and technologies increasingly script the choices we believe we make freely. My open mouth sits on the edge of action, much like how we sit at the cusp of technological revolution. The tension before damnation, or, optimistically, transformation for the better— interests me most. It captures our grappling with AI: suspended between excitement and unease, aware that crossing a threshold, wherever it lies, will change something fundamental. I paint with saturated realism to heighten this. The flora surrounding the scene constructs a synthetic Eden, signaling that even beauty in this new world is engineered.
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Creativity is my courtroom. I prosecute injustice with paint, channeling critiques of power into provocative imagery. Some recoil; I intend it. My pieces absorb discomfort, asking: What do you truly believe? I want viewers to confront convictions because, in noticing, we begin to care, and in caring, to act.
