Setting Sale Through Moral Tales is a large scale monochromatic mixed media painting that brings together female portraiture, flowers, birds and a falling male figure within a densely layered composition. Created in acrylic, spray paint, collage, ink and graphite, the work draws upon the visual language of myth, allegory and moral storytelling, without resolving itself into a single narrative.

Three female figures dominate the upper half of the canvas, each presented in a distinctly different psychological state. The woman on the left meets the viewer directly while holding an apple. The central figure fixes the viewer with an intensely piercing gaze, while her raised hands partially conceal the lower half of her face, obscuring her mouth and creating a sense of secrecy, restraint or withheld intention. In contrast, the woman on the right closes her eyes, appearing more inward or surrendered as flowers envelop her face. Their faces are interwoven with peony and rose like blooms, smaller blossoms and sweeping organic lines, with hair, petals and foliage repeatedly dissolving into one another.

The apple introduces one of the painting's strongest symbolic possibilities. In Western art it carries long associations with temptation, knowledge, desire and consequential choice, immediately recalling the Fall of Adam and Eve. Within this reading, the three female figures could represent different psychological states of Eve, with their contrasting expressions suggesting temptation, inner conflict and the emotional consequences of choice.

The same three figures also evoke the Judgement of Paris, in which Hera, Athena and Aphrodite compete for the golden apple and Paris's decision ultimately sets in motion the Trojan War. Their individual portrayals invite possible associations with the three goddesses. The commanding presence of the left figure could recall Hera, queen of the gods and goddess of marriage; the central woman's piercing, watchful gaze could evoke Athena, goddess of wisdom and strategic warfare; while the right figure's softer expression and surrounding flowers lend themselves to Aphrodite, goddess of love, beauty and desire. These identities remain deliberately uncertain, however. O'Connor provides none of their conventional attributes, and the woman holding the apple complicates any straightforward identification, allowing the three figures to operate simultaneously as mythological archetypes and psychological states.

At the centre of the composition, a male figure falls through the space beneath the women. Read alongside the apple, his descent creates an immediate visual relationship between choice and consequence, temptation followed by the Fall of Humanity. Within the Judgement of Paris reading, the figure could represent Paris (prince of Troy) whose decision to award the apple to Aphrodite ultimately contributes to the fall of Troy. His suspended body can also recall the archetype of Icarus, whose fall has long symbolised ambition, hubris and the dangers of exceeding one's limits. Rather than belonging conclusively to one story, the figure allows several familiar moral narratives to overlap. The Fall of Man, the Judgement of Paris and the fall of Icarus all revolve around a choice, desire or act of overreaching whose consequences extend far beyond the moment itself.

Across the upper half of the canvas, birds move through the composition in repeated flight, creating a sense of passage and carrying the eye from one figure towards another. Birds traditionally evoke freedom, transition and transcendence, offering a counterpoint to the falling body below. Near the central woman's raised hand, a butterfly like form introduces another possible symbol of change. Butterflies are traditionally associated with transformation, metamorphosis and renewal, themes that resonate with the painting's wider exploration of choices and their consequences. Abundant flowers similarly introduce associations with beauty, desire, life and impermanence, while their differing degrees of detail, from heavily rendered blooms to delicate white outlines, contribute to the painting's shifting boundary between the tangible and the imagined.

The monochromatic palette is particularly striking within O’Connor’s wider practice, which is typically characterised by a far more vibrant and saturated use of colour. Here, the restrained black, white and grey tones give the work the quality of an engraving, dream or remembered tale, while washes, exposed drawing and vertical paint drips prevent the image from becoming static. The darker, densely layered upper field gradually gives way to greater areas of white below, emphasising the downward movement of the falling figure and creating the impression that the narrative itself is dissolving as it descends.

The title adds a final layer of ambiguity. “Setting Sale” rather than “Setting Sail” transforms the familiar expression of beginning a journey into language associated with exchange, value and price. Within a painting concerned with moral choices, the alteration suggests that decisions are rarely without cost. This is particularly relevant to the Judgement of Paris, where competing promises are offered in exchange for the apple. The plural “Moral Tales” further allows the work to operate not as an illustration of one myth, but as a convergence of stories about temptation, desire, judgement, ambition and consequence.

Setting Sale Through Moral Tales is an original, one of one large format mixed media painting on canvas, 102 × 152 cm, available through Eclectic Gallery, Fitzrovia, London. To enquire or arrange a private viewing, contact the gallery.