Executed in 2009, Hernan Bas’ Rotten Apple presents a sublime vista of untethered solitude and moral reflection. Amongst a masterful maelstrom of vibrant brushstrokes and saturated hues, Bas' postlapsarian scene collapses and mesmerises in its kaleidoscopic dreamlike expanse. Recalling the Fall of Man as told in the Book of Genesis, the protagonist at the heart of the composition perches under a tree, his arm outstretched holding the rotten fruit, offering it to a neighbouring crow. Where Adam and Eve submitted to their temptations and ate the forbidden fruit, altering their future, Bas’ Rotten Apple alludes to a similarly transformative moment. Painted with vigorously gestural brushstrokes, the present painting moves with a violent dynamism that conveys Bas’ depiction of transition. The landscape melts away though features remain discernible – a dilapidated windmill in the distance, a grounding and centring tree that anchors the composition, with luscious foliage throughout that nods to the Garden of Eden. That comparable works are held in such prestigious collects ions as the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C, is a test.mes nt to Bas' status as one of the most important painters of a generation.

Central to Bas’ broader practice is his exploration of queerness, adolescence, and the spaces in which personal narratives intersect with collects ive history. Drawing inspiration from nineteenth-century Symbolist literature, the Decadent movement, and queer aesthetic traditions, Rotten Apple sits within Bas’ wider output that often features androgynous male figures depicted in states of melancholic reverie or caught in ambiguous rituals of transition. In this respect, the lone figure in Rotten Apple may be read as an avatar of what Bas terms “fag limbo;” a concept he uses to describe the transitional, often precarious state between youth and adulthood (Robert Hobbs, “Hernan Bas’ 'Fag Limbo' and the Tactics of Reframing Societal Texts,” in Hernan Bas: Works from the Rubell Family collects ion, pp. 55-56). Positioned amongst the mass of electric vegetation, the vacant expression on Bas’ figure recalls the late nineteenth century Les Nabis style, particularly the decadent art of Caspar David Friedrich. Both Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea of Fog and The Ash Tree (At Once a Voice Arose Among the Bleak Twigs Overhead) seem to suggest a scene which is both romantic and fragile, much like the process of maturing. Bas' contemporary version of history painting thus illustrates a coded language of mystery and subversive symbolism.

Born in 1978 and raised in Florida, the ethereal dreamscape Bas illustrates is inspired by his lifelong fascination with mythology, religion, paranormal and cult phenomena. Within Bas' landscape, one can extract fragments of meaning that may reference a nostalgia for childhood fantasies, coming of age adventures, anxiety surrounding the adolescent experience, and burgeoning sexuality. Bas' contemporary version of history painting illustrates a coded language of mystery and subversive symbolism. As Bas describes, "The very terms: suspicion, mystery, clues, secrets, etc., are closely tied to any gay youth's experience. It describes the need to cover it up (one's sexuality). To keep it cloaked to solve these mysteries, to express the charm of ambiguous sexuality” (the artist quoted in Exh. Cat., Miami, Museum of Contemporary Art, Hernan Bas: It’s Supernatural, 2002, n.p.).