This is not a banana

2026, Oil on Italian Linen, 101.6 x 101.6cm

This work examines how value is assigned and sustained within contemporary art. The original gesture of elevating a low-value objectnis pushed towards erasure, as the object itself becomes largely inaccessible, reduced to implication and a trace of colour. What remains is less the object than the framework of attention surrounding it.

While the subject implies an absence of labour or mastery, the image is the result of sustained effort. A gesture requiring no skill is rendered through a process demanding precision, control and time, returning authorship at the level of execution rather than action. The artist’s hand is both present and obscured: visible in the labour of representation, absent in the gesture represented. Value is split between concept and craft, even as the work exposes how readily one can be detached from the other.

Within the broader series, value is repeatedly reassigned through context, material and intervention. Here, the object almost disappears while its cultural and artistic associations remain intact. Echoing Magritte’s distinction between an object and its representation, the work suggests that value often resides less in what we see than in what we collectively agree is there.