Colour Green – Lin Fengmian – Hot & Sour Lime Soup
When considering the colour green, there are a number of connotations that are promptly conjured; green is the colour of money and wealth, through which one can become ‘green with jealously.’ Likewise, it is the colour of nature, growth, and life and one can have a ‘green thumb.’ It is within the secret green porcelain...
Pavlos Dionyssopoulos – Mushrooms Stuffed with Feta & Parmesan
Pavlos Dionyssopoulos, Still Life with Mushrooms (1997)wood, paper and plexiglass, 46.2 x 40 x 40 cm, Private collection The Greek artist, Pavlos Dionyssopoulous, began making manipulated paper sculptures in the early 1960s after an introduction to the New Realists (Nouveau Réaliste) in Paris. He called his technique affiches massicotées and it consisted of cutting misprinted poster...
Théo van Rysselberghe – Plum Applesauce
Théo van Rysselberghe, Still Life with Plums (1926), oil on canvas, dimensions unknown, Private collection As a neo-impressionist painter, Belgian-born Théo van Rysselberghe’s work embraced the ordered application of pure colour. In the painting Still Life with Plums (1926), created the year of his death, van Rysselberghe abandoned his earlier pointillist technique in favour of...
William Joseph McCloskey – Oven Candied Tangerines
I read the essay Borderland by M.F.K. Fisher on a sunny afternoon during a fleeting hour of leisure. The title gave no hint to the topic of the essay, yet within the first few sentences, the words began to resonate. Speaking of the simple pleasures of food, the methodological preparation of the tangerines reveals that...
Colour Yellow – Wolfgang Laib – Pollen and Turmeric Rice
Subtleties of taste, texture and tone – a simple meditation on the infinite. Made of rice and pollen meticulously mounded across the floor, Wolfgang Laib’s 2007 work, Ohne Zeit – ohne Ort – ohne Körper, acts as an ephemeral testimony to existence in its rawest forms. Amidst the grid work of rice mountains, the glowing...
Colour Yellow – Gustavo Montoya – Banana Flan
Yellow is a colour of juxtapositions. In the natural world, animals and insects cloak their bodies (often in conjunction with the colour black) to signify poison, danger. Likewise, it is the colour of death, the sallow skin of a sick person and the brilliant autumnal yellow of leaves before they fall to the ground. The...
Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas – Cabbage-Wrapped Meatballs
Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas, Still Life with Vegetables (1976), oil on board, 24 x 34 cm, Private collection Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas was recognised for his cubist work but spent the majority of his career concerned with the Greek landscape. He was considered one of the foremost proponents of Greek Modern Art and spent a large part of his...
Paul LaCroix – Semi-Dried Tomato & Asparagus Quiche
Paul LaCroix, Still Life with Asparagus and Tomatoes (1864), oil on canvas, 34.29 x 41.28 cm, Private collection There is a very limited amount of literature concerning the American artist Paul LaCroix. He has a handful of works in regional art museums around the United States and he is thought to have been a contemporary...
Tom Wesselmann – Pear Tart with Whiskey Cream
I am excited to be included on the Design*Sponge website as part of the ‘In the kitchen with…’ series. Hopefully the short description I sent with the recipe will tempt you to visit the Design*Sponge page to take a look at the pear tart with whiskey cream. Combining the ingredients in Tom Wesselmann’s Still Life #2 was...
Utagawa Kuniyoshi – Wakame Seaweed Salad
Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳), Toto meisho 東都名所 (Famous Places in Edo) / Omori 大森 (1830-35)woodblock printed by Kagaya Kichibel (加賀屋), 25.4 x 36.7 cm, The British Museum Utagawa Kuniyoshi, master of the ukiyo-e style of painting, was guided by elements of Western art including elements of landscape painting and the caricature. Ukiyo-e is a specific genre...
Giorgio Morandi – Croissant French Toast
In France, French toast is called pain perdu, or ‘lost bread’ to highlight the way the dish reclaims unfortunate lumps of bread that become too hard to eat. The recipe of a stale bit of bread, dipped in eggy milk and fried, is made especially indulgent through the use of a croissant – crispy on...
Colour Orange – Carsten Höller – Marinated Chanterelles
Beautiful butterflies, stunning flowers, and fruiting trees attract and deflect attention with their often intricate colouration. Targeted for particular audiences, a single color can carry conflicting messages. In nature, orange signals vitamin rich potency and likewise poisonous lethal doses, though it also functions simply as a scare tactic. In works by artist Carsten Höller, orange...