Varvara Roza Galleries in St James's has opened APPLECORE II, a new exhibition of paintings by London-based Czech-British artist Hynek Martinec, curated by Ben Tufnell. The show, Martinec's debut with the gallery, runs until October 20 and takes one of art history's most enduring symbols — the apple — as its point of departure. The works combine classical painting technique with contemporary questions about originality, authorship and human creativity. Drawing on biblical imagery, Renaissance painting and still-life traditions, Martinec builds complex, often unsettling compositions around knowledge, temptation, memory and transformation. '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,' the artist said. '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.' At the same time, he noted, 'the apple can simply remain an apple: a quiet, beautiful object beyond symbolism.' The exhibition continues ideas first explored in Cyberlemon, Martinec's 2025 show at DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague, where fruit became a way of navigating the history of painting. Though often described as a hyperrealist, Martinec layers imagery from diverse sources, and the new paintings test where that technical precision meets questions about perception, memory and reality. The St James's show is the second part of a two-venue project: its first instalment was a monumental wall drawing created live over six days at Hypha Studios South Bank, with the public able to watch it develop. Martinec studied classical techniques with Zdeněk Beran at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and moved to London in 2007 after winning the BP Young Artist Award. His work has been shown at the National Portrait Gallery, the National Gallery Prague, the National Museum in Stockholm and the National Gallery of Finland, and is held by the British Museum and the Zabludowicz Collection. A Q&A with the artist and Tufnell is scheduled at the gallery during Frieze London week on October 17.