the research – 

The objective was to create three landscapes and three portrait images depicting two topics. I started with surrealism which was the basis of my previous project and combined this theme with food, a subject chosen after a class discussion. Personally, food has always been more than just a source of energy it has embodied fear and negativity as well as pleasure and joy. I wanted to explore the human relationship to food, how others react around it as well as be inspired by personal experiences. The opportunity to relieve any stress around food at the time through my art felt right. Below are some images of the initial research and drawings I made as a way to become inspired and proactive. I created observations from the life of people in our kitchen candidly having experiences with food. Especially having to share a kitchen with flatmates and using the area for both food and socializing the emphasis on foods’ ability to bring people together was amplified. I also went back through some of my old journals to find snippets of entries where I would be struggling with my relationship to food and made monoprints onto fabrics from this. Using the prints I also experimented with collages from cookbooks and diet-related books combining images that juxtaposed one another creating a surrealist effect.

‘ drunk kitchen ‘ 

Below are images of a landscape panorama in ink. I was inspired by photos I had taken late one night in our kitchen. The distorted images of my flatmates created whilst taking a panorama embodied the feeling of being drunk. I enjoyed creating a relaxed scene with the fluidity of the ink allowing me to express the lines without restriction. With the subjects being sat on the kitchen counter it helped draw attention to a space that was being used to prepare food and to enjoy socializing in.

 ‘ bed time ‘

‘Bed Time’ was inspired by my habit to consume large quantities of food on my bed. It was food that was out of place, and an experience I was having in a place that was obscure. I painted onto a large cardboard canvas a scene of my room and the foods I had consumed there, the foods being disproportionate to the size of my room. I wanted the foods to be in the foreground to draw attention to their impact and the amount of mental space they would take up. I made sure the coloring was vivid and bright to emphasize a more dreamlike state. It was inspired by the sensation and haze I would get from binging.

time lapse acrylic paint on cardboard.

‘ subway sandwich arm ‘

For this piece, I wanted to make something that was three-dimensional. Again being inspired by our connection with food, I wanted to experiment with a more literal reflection of this. I think this piece holds implications of you are what you eat and you become the food you consume; foods affect the body. I wanted something surreal and literal to adhere to my themes. I created the sculpture from air-drying clay, painting it with acrylic and finishing it with gloss.

‘ stomach ‘ 

The piece below is made from a collage of three separate lino prints. I created initial sketches on paper to decide what I wanted to add to the lino then proceeded to draw and cut. Before concluding I tested the effect of different colours using acrylic paint which did not work as well as the paint lacked a dense colour. In the end black, and white was more suited to the darker theme of this image. The idea being the subject has consumed a large amount of food and at the same time, the food is consuming them.

‘ egg week tapestry ‘

Curated using fabrics and acrylic paint, this portrait piece was inspired by my extreme cravings for eggs for one week. I wanted to have a textured expression of food with layers whilst also experimenting with the use of fabrics. I cut and painted the individual egg whites and yokes, sticking and layering them onto a larger piece of fabric.

‘ market place ‘

This piece was inspired by the feeling of being overwhelmed whilst shopping for food, it was created in coloured pencil. I added eyes and expressions to the individual food items to personify their appearance. Again adding to the idea that food is more than just an energy source, a fuel, it is capable of stirring a plethora of emotions in humankind.