The Pear

Inspired by Conor Walton’s still life of pears, I reinterpreted his work with a contemporary lens. One pear begins to rot within a sealed plastic bag—an image that echoes the proverb “One bad apple spoils the barrel,” though here it’s a pear. The slow spread of decay captures how a single corrupting force can quietly infiltrate and unsettle an entire environment. This metaphor extends to today’s digital age, where toxic thoughts or emotions ripple through social media, and conformity often replaces reflection. Through this painting, I explore the fragility of the human psyche and the uneasy balance between surface harmony and internal decay.