Ken + Julia Yonetani – Preserved Lemons
In French, the term ‘still life’ is nature morte, which literally translates to dead nature. In Ken + Julia Yonetani’s Still Life: The Food Bowl (2011), 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 –...
Jon Feinstein – Pork & Chipotle Sliders
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...
Henri Matisse vs. Pablo Picasso – Sweet & Sour Chicken
Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse were two of the most influential Modernist artists working in the first half of the twentieth century. The two artists met in 1905 at one of author Gertrude Stein’s gatherings (Stein was a patron of Picasso’s). Their work was – and still is – often compared, and upon meeting, the...
Colour Blue – Pablo Picasso – Broccoli + Blue Cheese Soup
The colour blue – reserved for the robes of the holiest of mothers – was one of the rarest and most expensive pigments in use during the Renaissance. For the depiction of Virgin Mary, only ultramarine was used due to its price and elusiveness as it is was found only in Asia and is presently...
Claude Monet – French Toast with Garlic + Herbs
Within the history of art, the egg has been used to symbolise life, rebirth, fertility and potential. The icon has a long history and according to Silvia Malaguzzi in Food and Feasting in Art, “They symbolise rebirth, and that symbolic value was subsequently christianized in biblical exegesis and took the form of Easter eggs, the...
Janet Tavener – Vanilla & Blueberry Frozen Fruit Mold
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...
Francis Cadell – Sweet Tomato Relish
“A cooked tomato is like a cooked oyster: ruined.” – Andre Simon, The Concise Encyclopedia of Gastronomy Francis Cadell, Still Life (Tomatoes) (c.1920), oil on board, 37 x 45 cm, Private collection Francis Cadell’s association with the Scottish Colourists stemmed from his early exposure to the French avant-garde movement of Fauvism. Still Life (Tomatoes) (c.1920)...
François Bonvin – Chili & Garlic Roasted Pumpkin with Coriander & Lime
François Bonvin, Still life with a Pumpkin, Peaches and a Silver Goblet on a Table Top (1858)oil on canvas, 38 x 46cm, Private collection François Bonvin, a French Realist painter, was a predominantly self-taught artist who spent copious amounts of time at the Louvre where he gained an appreciation for the Dutch Old Masters. The...
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...