An apple, an artist and the age of AI: Hynek Martinec opens in St James's

An apple can be a piece of fruit, a biblical warning or the logo on a device in your pocket. For painter Hynek Martinec, it is also a way into a question facing artists today: what happens to creativity when images can be generated in seconds?

His new exhibition, APPLECORE, opens at Varvara Roza Galleries in St James’s on Wednesday 30 September. Curated by Ben Tufnell, it brings together a new series of paintings that draw on centuries of art history while looking squarely at the digital present.

Martinec is known for the precision of his painting, but his images are rarely as straightforward as they first appear. In APPLECORE, familiar objects become the starting point for paintings about temptation, memory, knowledge and the way we see. The exhibition develops ideas from Cyberlemon, his 2025 show at Prague’s DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, where fruit led viewers through the history of painting.

“'APPLECORE' captures the moment before the Fall, when the apple remains untouched, just before Adam and Eve’s bite changes the course of human history,” Martinec says. “In the age of artificial intelligence, I return to this ancient image and ask what place these timeless stories have in a world where technology is transforming our relationship with images, memory and creativity.”

Then he offers a simpler possibility: “The apple can simply remain an apple: a quiet, beautiful object beyond symbolism.”

Classical Painting Techniques Meet the Digital Present

The gallery show follows Martinec’s large-scale wall drawing at Hypha Studios South Bank, which offered visitors a chance to watch him work. The new paintings in St James’s take the ideas explored there onto canvas.

Born in the Czech Republic and based in London, Martinec trained in classical painting techniques at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. He moved to London in 2007 after winning the BP Young Artist Award. His work has since been shown at institutions including the Royal Academy of Arts, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery Prague.

Hynek Martinec: APPLECORE is at Varvara Roza Galleries, Duke Street, St James’s, from 30 September to 20 October 2026.