Ken and Julia Yonetani / Janet Tavener, Artlink, vol 31 no.2, 2011, p.156
Contributor: Gastro-Vision: The Best in Food-Art 2010, Art21, 17 December 2010
Fast Food through the Lens of Still Life Photographers, Curator, 12 November 2010
Category “Contemporary Art”
The name ‘still life’, when referring to the genre, was derived from the French nature morte, which literally translates to dead nature. The irony is not lost that a still life, depicting the nourishing foods that maintain life, is cast in a substance that simultaneously preserves food and prevents growth – thus embodying both life and death. Consumption and environmental decline are issues at the forefront of the work with the salt highlighting the death of the ecosystem from which the groundwater is pumped. The salt sculptures with their ghostly pallor and the effervescent fleeting ice forms embody the transient nature of the organic products. Through modern farming practices, shallow rooted plants replace native vegetation enabling the dissolved salts stored in the ground to rise and contaminate water systems on the surface. The result is saline water, demonstrating the way both water and salt are intrinsically linked. Through the Yonetani’s work, the need for a conscious awareness of where food is sourced and how its consumption effects the environment is reinforced. 
Ken + Julia Yonetani, Still Life: The Food Bowl, 2011, Murray River salt,* dimensions variable (all objects life size), Copyright the Artists and Artereal Gallery, Sydney
* All the salt in this work was obtained from SunSalt, and originates from the Buronga Salt Interception Scheme on the Murray River.
Jon Feinstein’s 2008 series titled Fast Food features an assortment of sandwiches and sides purchased from chain restaurants. Stripping each foodstuff from a contextualizing background, the food floats against a stark black void — each detail meticulously recorded via the flatbed scanner. For Feinstein, the use of the scanner in place of a camera is twofold; it allows him to render the image in a “rigid, specific and typological manner” and it mirrors the “removal of the hand in food preparation.”[1] Represented sans the gloss of the company branding, the food is presented un-apologetically to the viewer, pressed against an invisible boundary. Each image is paired with a number followed by ‘grams’ to highlight the amount of fat in each meal, as demonstrated in the photograph 16 grams, conceded by the artist to be a Burger King cheeseburger. According to Feinstein, “These photographs investigate the love/hate relationship that many Americans have with fast food, and like many other aspects of popular culture, its ability to be simultaneously seductive and repulsive.”[2]
[1] Feinstein, Jon, email interview, 29 September 2010.
[2] Ibid.
Jon Feinstein, 16 Grams, 2008,
digital c-print, 50.8 x 50.8 cm, edition of 10 + 2 APs.
Currently on view at Brenda May Gallery is a curated group exhibition titled Art + Humour Me featuring the works of twenty Australian contemporary artists. In addition to a cardigan-wearing tree, the show includes artworks in a range of mediums from sculpture to video and naturally I was drawn to the three cast resin jelly mold sculptures by Janet Tavener (pictured below). For a serious laugh or at the very least a bit of a giggle visit Art + Humour Me on view at Brenda May Gallery (2 Danks St., Waterloo), on view until 7 May 2011.
I am very excited to announce that I will be curating an art + food exhibition next year at Brenda May Gallery. We are now accepting proposals from artists so please read the exhibition outline below and contact the Gallery with any questions or visit the submissions page for further details.
‘Art + Food – Beyond the Still Life’ – October 2012
This exhibition will consider the representation of food within the visual arts and beyond the standard still life tableaux. The consumption of food is a universally shared experience, enabling viewers to connect with the issues surrounding consumerism, food production and cultural identity, explored by the artists. ‘Art + Food – Beyond the Still Life’ will be on exhibition during the Sydney International Food Festival.
Proposals for this show must be received by Friday 27 July, 2012.
Janet Tavener, Baby Blue No 3, 2011
coloured resin, 12 x 12 x 12 cm, Brenda May Gallery
Green is one of the most abundant colors; there are greens in every imaginable shade and tone throughout the world’s natural landscapes. From green algae to rainforest canopies, green permeates and dominates in its diversity. Individual greens are often blurred as countless plants merge into a color field, many overlapping green leaves forming the density of forests or millions of blades blending to become a sports field’s smooth surface. The simultaneous layering and highlighting that is seen in nature can be compared to the artwork of Jonathan Monk, who’s layering of meaning and medium fuse together history, critique, and technique. Monk’s 2002 work, Green with hidden Noise combines a single solid swath of green painted roughly on a white wall with a slide projection focused directly atop this patch of color. The circular projection itself appears to depict a green scene: a forest of trees? The composition is green on green.
Jonathan Monk, Green with hidden Noise, 2002,
slide installation and wall painting, image courtesy Meyer Riegger, Karlsruhe and Berlin
