Poisoned Apple - Currently Showing at Red Hill Gallery

Poisoned Apple

Acrylic on canvas by Viva

In Poisoned Apple, the artist captures the haunting stillness of temptation just before surrender. A young woman stands at the threshold of innocence and consequence, her pale fingers wrapped around a crimson apple that glows with dangerous allure. Her eyes—wide, green, and unflinchingly direct—seem to know the secret the fruit holds, yet she neither resists nor indulges. She exists in the pause between knowing and doing.

The surrounding orchard is lush yet ominous; the fruit hangs heavy, ripe with both sweetness and decay. Blossoms weave through her dark braids, symbols of purity fading into the verdant shadows behind her. Her emerald ring mirrors the colour of her gaze—a reflection of envy, desire, or perhaps awakening.

The artist plays with dualities: innocence and sin, nature and artifice, life and death. The apple, a recurring emblem of forbidden knowledge, becomes less an object of seduction and more a mirror of the human condition—our yearning for what we are warned against.

Poisoned Apple invites viewers to linger in that quiet, charged moment of decision. It’s not a story of Eve or Snow White, but of anyone who has ever stood before beauty and danger entwined, holding both in trembling hands.

Original acrylic painting on cotton

100cm x 150cm canvas. This painting is currently on display at Red Hill Gallery Brisbane