An ongoing 'reboot’ project of my 2017 Batsford Prize shortlisted 'Fruits of Our Culture’ series, which explored the symbolism surrounding different fruits.

It was golden apples which were cultivated by the Norse goddess Iðunn, and a golden apple offered by Paris to the most beautiful goddess - Aphrodite - which trigged the Trojan War. In western depictions of the garden of Eden, it was the red apple which the serpent used to tempt Eve, and Disney’s Snow White too fell to its charms. Perhaps apples connote a risky temptation, whether the “warm apple pie” Jim Levestein made love to in the emblematic ‘American Pie’, or in the “apple bottom jeans” that drove Flo Rida so crazy in 2007’s ‘Get Low’. Somewhat risky too was the apple-shooting of William Tell.

In the far east, the orange is a symbol of the sun. They are a symbol of good luck and fertility. The orange is rare among trees for its ability to have both flowers and fruit on a branch at once, leading to associations with both virginity and fertility combined; to this end, it is a traditional symbol of brides in China.

I chose a qipao dress for this orangey bride, though I did add a big slit up the side so she could get her leg out for more tattoos.

There’s so many orange references in this pic, I thought I’d just straight up list them:

Her make up: Clockwork Orange

Her arm tattoo: The Orange Show by folk artist Jeff McKissak

The pile of oranges: Fruit of Paradise (1970 film) dir. Vera Chytilova

Pointy-cut orange slices: The Godfather movies

Crucifix necklace: Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit novel by Jeanette Winterson

Handcuffs: Orange is the New Black (which I know isn’t about the fruit but the temptation was too strong)

The 5 orange pips: The Five Orange Pips, Sherlock Holmes story

Leg tattoos include: William of Orange, the OC, Terry’s Chocolate Orange logo, the flag of Florida, Orangey the cat, the eye from the lady on Blood Orange’s Coastal Grooves album art.

I first gave her my first mobile phone, a hand-me-down from my mum with an aerial and the original Snake game, that also happened to be coloured bright orange. But it looked like a vague block so I changed it to a more iconic flip phone, still with an aerial. I suppose it’s still relevant to the Orange phone network.

The drinks inc: Funta, OJ, a mimosa, Orange Julian, and (jake peralta voice) orange drank. 

For me and many brits like me, I associate strawberries with summer, so the first symbol that came to mind was of strawberries and cream in Wimbledon. So, she wears a polo shirt, ponytail, and a visor with the ‘Strawberry Letter’ 23.

Compared to the other ‘main’ fruits like apples and oranges, I couldn’t think of many associations off the top of my head, so I turned to the internet.

Throughout history, strawberries have remained a symbol of sweetness and goodness. In ancient Nordic culture, the spirits of dead babies grew into strawberries, as which they would be disguised from darkness as they ascended to heaven. So, the berries were often not eaten.. Strawberries were a gift from Freya/Frigga, who was a goddess of many things, including beauty, love and fertility, and cried tears of gold. Upon the transition to Christianity, it was Mary who was adopted the association with strawberries. She was said to love them so much that anyone who entered the gates of heaven with strawberry juice on their lips would be turned away.

In Shakespeare’s Othello, the handkerchief of Desdemona (who is first epitomised as sweetness itself, so that her character may be besmirched) is embroidered with patterns of strawberry plants. It later is spotted with red blood in her murder.

In Bavarian folk tradition, strawberries were gathered and hung in baskets from the horns of cows to ask local nature spirits for healthy calves, and strawberry leaves in a woman’s pocket would help relieve the pains of pregnancy. The Romans believed strawberries alleviated misery. The Seneca people of the northeastern US associated the fruit with rebirth, and believed they grew along the path to heaven.

Strawberries were a symbol of Aphrodite also, and they remain a ‘sexy’ fruit, usually when with chocolate. Folklore says that those who share a strawberry will fall in love.

However, during the middle ages, the berries were eschewed by the upper classes after an abbess declared that they were not fit for eating, because they were close to the ground where toads and snakes did slither.

Strawberries have remained an icon of sweetness, EG, Strawberry Shortcake (or her cat, as featured her), and as such are open to be subverted, as by Strawberry Switchblade.

The Strawberry Moon is the name given long ago to the full moon of June, since this was the time of year that wild strawberries fruited.

Her tattoos feature some weird strawberry worship from Hieronymous Bosch’s ‘Garden of Earthy Delights’, and of the Beatles, plus the original ‘Strawberry Hill’ signage. 

This portrait of pomegranates is also a portrait of Persephone, ancient greek goddess of the Underworld.

The story of Persephone is the ancient Greek story of the changing seasons. Daughter of harvest goddess Demeter, they spent their lives together, until she was ‘stolen’ by Hades and dragged down to the Underworld to be his wife. Demeter demanded her return, but because she had sucked six pomegranate seeds while she was in the Underworld, she was bound to spend six months of each year there. While she is there, Demeter is miserable, so the weather turns cold and the plants don’t grow. When her daughter is returned, Demeter is happy and summer returns.

However, more modern interpretations of Persephone identify that she had far more going on than the ‘damsel in distress’ archetype. She was known as the ‘dread queen’ of the Underworld, which she ruled with an iron fist, while nerdy accountant-like Hades just kept things in order.

The pomegranate itself has two ancient origin myths. Some say it grew from the blood of Apollo, others that it grew from the blood spilled in the castration of Agditis, in respect of which, the castrated priests of Attis wore the fruits and its leaves as wreaths on their heads.

In several cultures, the pomegranate is associated with a crown, thanks to its shapes at the top, and referred to as the ‘royal orb’.

Pomegranates are the emblem and the namesake of Granada, in southern Spain, which was named in Arabic by the Moors centuries ago. Pomegranates are an important ingredient of middle-eastern cuisine, including the sweet and sour pomegranate molasses.

Pomegranates and metal decorations of the fruit are still used widely in Greece as housewarming gifts.

At the bottom of the illustration, are two pomegranates lifted from Salvador Dali’s ‘Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening’, my favourite of his paintings.

As I did research into grapes, it soon became clear that it would be impossible to separate grapes from wine, for which the ancient associations remain much unchanged.

More than other any greek god, the image of Dionysus/Bacchus is widely recognisable. He is a symbol of the ancient’s hedonism and drunken debauchery. Lesser known is his assocation with fertility and the phallus, snake, bull, and his regular portrayal with bull horns.

Meanwhile, the most potent context of wine in enduring religion is as the blood of Christ, although both christianity and islam talk of wine and grapes in relation to paradise, despite the latter’s rejection of alcohol during life on earth.

However, in ancient Egypt, grapes and their vine were a symbol of resurrection and the dead, often portrayed around gravesite.

As the one token modern reference, I wanted to do a visual nod to the girl on the Sun Maid raisins box, ft red ribbon and green grapes in a basket.

For Christmas, here is Pear, ft the ‘First Day of Christmas’ partridge from the Twelve Days of Christmas carol.

Unlike all the other fruits I’ve researched so far, pears have an association with death, suffering and illness, since Shakespeare’s “french withered pears” aka syphilitic female genitalia, til the movies ‘L’albero delle pere’ and ‘pear cider and cigarettes’ which both involve illness.

Pear trees ceasing to fruit is compared to death and ending, potently in Derakhte Golabi’s film ‘The Pear Tree’ and historically regarding the german empire in the old pear of the Unsterberg.

Pears are a symbol of St Catharine of Siena, the ‘mystical bride’ of Christ, who died by beheading and is regularly depicted with hovering head. I have drawn her dress based on the beautiful one she is painted in at Barcelona Cathedral (which despite her missing head is not at all bloodstained, natch).

The wasps and fang are in reference to the respective short films, ‘The Pear and the Fang’ and ‘Wasps, Geese, Pear-tree’.

Now considered a symbol of the womb, figs have been cultivated since the VERY OLD TIMES.

Fig leaves were iconically worn by Adam and Eve, who in some non western translations of the Bible, ate the forbidden FIGS, not apples. Figs are also from heaven, according to the Quran.

Long before that, fig wood was used by the ancient Egyptians for mummy ‘coffins’, while the fruit was a symbol of the Earth goddess Hathor.

In ancient greece, figs were a major symbol of the wine god Dionysus, and he and his followers wore wreaths made of fig leaves. Dionysus, who was also worshipped as a fertility god, was likely associated with figs because they look kinda like testicles; in ancient greek, the word for ‘fig’ is the same as the word for ‘testicle’. Necklaces of dried figs were also worn by the castrated priests of Attis.

Fast-forward many centuries to Romulus and Remus, the Rome-founding twins of Roman myth. They were nursed by a wolf, after being born under the shade of a fig tree.

Something fascinating and also Actually Real Science Fact about Figs is their relationship with the tiny fig wasps, on which they are entirely dependant. Over the millennia they have evolved to require only these wasps for their peculiar method of pollination. The fig flower-reproductive parts are inside the unripe fig bud, which the queen burrows into to lay her eggs - then die. The males hatch, mate with the unborn sisters, then also die. The pregnant females hatch and in all this process, the fig is pollinated. The females then burrow OUT of the fig to go lay eggs in another fig. The dead wasps are absorbed into the flesh of the ripening fig.