Apples to Oranges is a visual dialogue on love, culture, and perception.

Apples to Oranges is a visual dialogue on love, culture, and perception—how we express care, how we interpret symbols, and how meaning shifts depending on context.

The series began with a simple observation: in many Asian cultures, love is often expressed through actions rather than words. A mother may not say “I love you,” but she will cut fruit for her child—a quiet, enduring gesture of care. As a Pākehā in a bi-cultural relationship with a Malaysian partner, I have found myself navigating the space between these different ways of being, often confronting the subtle indoctrinations of Western cultural norms.

The act of sharing fruit became a metaphor for these contrasts—verbal versus unspoken, direct versus symbolic, West versus East. Visually, these ideas unfold through bold, graphic compositions that straddle the familiar and the fragmented. Some paintings present fruit in its simplest, most recognisable form— clean, iconic shapes that could be logos, pop-art relics, or childhood illustrations. Others are distorted, layered with digital glitches, the Photoshop transparency grid, and overlapping forms, evoking media manipulation, digital influence, and cultural misinterpretation.

The apple—an ancient symbol of nourishment, knowledge, and temptation—becomes a site of tension: whole and broken, bright and decayed, a symbol of health yet also of control and tech-driven homogenisation. Through these contrasts, Apples to Oranges explores the ways we consume information, judge cultural norms, and internalise perspectives shaped by media narratives. It is both a reflection of personal experience and a broader meditation on the ways we perceive and project meaning in an increasingly polarised world.

Apples to Oranges is located at ArtsPost Gallery until April 26th.