Artist Chenyu Wang creates multi-layered works that investigate the intersection between visual narratives and societal status symbols. His 2025 digital artwork ‘Institutionalised Desire’ features a giant red apple sculpture covered in white discs with a bright yellow stalk, which brings to mind the psychedelic dotty art of Yayoi Kusama with a humorous hint of Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach, and a reference to Jony Ive’s iconic Apple logo, which he created in 1998 and has since become one of the most enduring symbols of contemporary branding and advertising. The original logo was designed by Apple co-founder Ronald Wayne in 1976 and depicted Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree.
Chenyu Wang follows in an illustrious line of modern and contemporary artists who have been interested in examining advertising through their artistic practice. Andy Warhol famously created screenprints of the Apple logo in 1985, and Salvador Dali was a Surrealist fine artist who also ventured into advertising by designing commercial products including Alka-Seltzer and Chupa Chups.
We live in a consumer-driven, capitalist society saturated by screens and filters, which exacerbate our desire to consume more and promote luxury brands and covetable products such as the latest Apple iphone or designer handbag. Chenyu Wang questions this addiction to brand names and status symbols with ‘Institutionalised Desire’, which recalls the classic, cautionary fairy tale of Snow White, who is tempted to eat the poisoned red apple offered like an irresistible jewel by the Wicked Queen.
One particularly eye-catching frame from the digital film ‘Institutionalised Desire’ features the jewel-like giant red apple in the foreground, positioned by the window in a light-flooded room, with a line of opulent chandeliers disappearing into the distance, and a series of bejewelled spherical objects on the floor. The décor of the room recalls a grand 19th Century ballroom, while the bright white light lends a futuristic atmosphere which is almost Kubrickian, and the apple has a surreal vibe.
In another frame we see a line of stunning Gold apple sculptures, lined up on plinths along a series of tall windows, light filtering through the window-panes and bouncing off the golden fruit onto the highly polished floor. This use of Gold lends a feeling of opulence associated with the historic decadence and over-consumption of the Courts of Versailles, perhaps an analogy for the huge divide in contemporary society between the haves and have-nots, as the wealth gap between Billionaires and those struggling on or below the poverty line widens.
Wang’s use of digital art to explore the relationship between familiar imagery and frightening or polarising visions of a dystopian future, shows a great sense of perception. Through his work he is deconstructing and examining the hierarchical, celebrity and money-obsessed nature of contemporary society, which can often be alienating and divisive.
Wang’s intelligent, ambiguous digital artwork suggests in the title ‘Institutionalised Desire’ that humanity is travelling down a dangerous path with its addiction to consumption, luxury and material belongings, and the pursuit of riches perpetrated by the 1% on their curated Instagram feeds. ‘Institutionalised Desire’ is a multi-layered, observant examination of contemporary society, from the point of view of a Gen Z artist with a great knowledge of history, combined with a futuristic vision.
Written by Lee Sharrock
