Anatomy of an Exhibit, Part II

How the curator organizes a show and the common threads that unite the pieces are a thought process I doubt many gallery visitors get to glimpse. The curator's introduction tends to be the key illuminator, and I hope people take the time to read what a curator states about an exhibition as a prelude to seeing the work. A work taken out of context can be perplexing. You wonder what the artist is trying to say, or at worst, what was the curator thinking when they chose that piece? It would be like stepping mid-way into a movie and trying to understand why the characters all hated each other. So, following, is the intoduction to Feasting Eyes: Artists Take On Food by Gerald Mead: (then I strongly suggest you come and see the show so that the words take on meaning)

"The centuries spanning relationship between food and art has yielded artworks ranging from exquisitely rendered still lifes to conceptual works that address the multifarious roles that food and food products play in our lives. This exhibition consists of work by 23 established and emerging artists working in all media who have used food as reference in their artistic practice.

There are a number of artists in Western New York whose names have become synonymous with food themed work. These include photographer Biff Henrich who has used images of food and its consumption in various series over the years, Marion Faller, well known for her photo documents of cultural food displays, and A. J. Fries, widely recognized for his pop art inspired, vibrant paintings of pies and cakes. Fruit and vegetable use in the genre of still life is well represented through the exacting oil paintings of Thomas Kegler and John Yerger and luminous watercolors by Rita Argen Auerbach and Norine Spurling. The plastic fruit assemblages of Doreen DeBoth and whimsical ceramic works by Katherine Gullo share with Jackie Felix’s bold acrylic paintings an idiosyncratic, playful sensibility. In a related vein, Courtney Grim and James Paulsen use exaggerated scale to explore the commodification of food products. Michael Morgulis's digital scans of familiar (and some unfamiliar) foods, Priscilla Bowen’s atmospherically rendered drawings of root vegetables, Nancy Parisi’s artfully composed photographs and the delicate embroidered fiber “lettuce” sculptures by Barbara Murak all celebrate the textural beauty inherent in foods we often use in meal preparation. John Pfahl, through his iconic images of the compost pile, demonstrates that even the remnants of that preparation can be highly aesthetic.

Food's ability to function as a means of portraiture is a theme addressed in various ways by Coni Minneci, Kevin Charles Kline and Stefani Bardin. Minneci and Kline each use a single fruit as a “model.” Minneci’s pears in her A to Z Women Artists Series each represent the work/life of a single woman artist and Kline’s apples comment on human body image obsessions and related procedures such as abdominoplasty. Bardin’s “you are what you eat” thesis is expressed through her video portraits of individuals via the contents of their refrigerators, aptly projected from within an actual refrigerator.

Finally, Christy Rupp’s fictitious containers for genetically altered foods and Christopher Stangler’s fish paintings/assemblages both deal with serious environmental issues affecting what we eat, and sculptor Ryan Legassicke’s hybridized dining table (absent food) intersects the natural with the artificial and calls to mind the social aspects of food consumption.

Food is ubiquitous and contemporary artists continue to depict, define and interpret its nature and meaning. As a result, they offer unique commentaries on our visual and physical relationship with something we quite literally need to survive. "--Gerald Mead