Someone must have told the following artists not to play
with their food way too many times, to the point that it became a rebellious
habit that some might describe as a psychosis. Regardless of how they became
inspired to use food as an art medium or subject, these food artists and
sculptors have created some amazing foodscapes, paintings, sculptures and even
entire rooms that are at times mouthwatering and at others stomach turning.
With masterpieces like bacon villages and a pope made of pizza, here are 15 of
the most creative food artists around who truly practice a strange art of design.
(All images & comments from webecoist.momtastic.com)
Jason Mecier
(images via: JasonMecier.com)
Jason Mecier is a mosaic artist who creates portraits made of unexpected materials – namely, food. Potato chips, beans, hamburger buns, candy, cookies, noodles, and pretzels come together to portray the images of celebrities like Rosie O’Donnell, Rachel Ray, Jerry Seinfeld and Kristy Yamaguchi. The subjects of his portraits have left comments on his website like this gem from Boy George: ““How fabulous! I’m a linguine head.”
(images via: JasonMecier.com)
Jason Mecier is a mosaic artist who creates portraits made of unexpected materials – namely, food. Potato chips, beans, hamburger buns, candy, cookies, noodles, and pretzels come together to portray the images of celebrities like Rosie O’Donnell, Rachel Ray, Jerry Seinfeld and Kristy Yamaguchi. The subjects of his portraits have left comments on his website like this gem from Boy George: ““How fabulous! I’m a linguine head.”
French sculptor Christel Assante uses
the naturally delicate qualities of eggshells to create sculptures that are
extraordinarily fragile, creating designs that almost resemble lacework in
their intricacy. Assante creates custom designs for buyers, working in mostly
quail and goose eggs. Each egg takes her about 3 to 4 days to sculpt. The eggs
are lit from a small bulb placed inside through a hole in the bottom.
Sculptor Jim Victor spends
hours in extremely cold freezers sculpting mounds and mounds of butter into
life-size figures of horses, children, and of course, cows. Butter isn’t the
only food material he works with – he has created sculptures in chocolate and
cheese as well as mounds of fruits and vegetables. He also works in traditional
media like bronze and wood.
Deep purple cabbage leaves stand in for a moonlit sea, while
salmon slices resemble a lake glittering in the midday sun. Herb grass,
broccoli trees, baguette mountains, potato rocks and red onion hot air balloons
create surreal landscapes in the foodscapes of artist Carl Warner.
Warner sketches out the scenes first and then uses pins and super glue to hold
together his creations, which take a few days each to complete.
Renaissance artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo was perhaps the first artist to use food to create a
mosaic image, though his work was in paint, not made of food itself. This
image, ‘Summer’, is part of a seasonal series and features a human profile made
up of fruits and vegetables. His work had a surreal quality long before
the advent of the Surrealist Art movement, and his ‘food portraits’ no doubt
inspired some of the other artists on this list.
In St. Petersburg, Russia, a bakery called Zhanna is giving cake artists all over
the world a run for their money. Zhanna has created some of the most insanely
amazing cakes in the history of human civilization, from treasure chests full
of edible jewelry and flats of Pepsi cans to life-size sewing machines and
hamburgers that look so realistic, you’d almost be surprised to bite into it
and realize it’s cake.
Artist Dieter Roth experimented
with organic materials – including food – while working as a visiting professor
at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1965. He smeared chocolate and banana
on canvas, assembled piles of chocolate and butter into sculptures and sealed
slices of sausage between glass with every intention of allowing them to decay
and mold to see how the work would evolve.
James Parker of Veggy Art creates some of the most
incredible fruit and vegetable sculptures, and has been featured repeatedly on
the Food Network, including a Fantasy Fruit Sculpture challenge (for which he
won the gold medal in a rematch). Fruit and vegetable carving has been popular
for food garnishing in Asia since ancient times and has evolved into works of
art that outshine the food itself.
Pastry chef Mike McCarey translates
client’s ideas into confectionery masterpieces, making edible sculptures that
are about as amazing as they get. Dogs, dinosaurs, musical instruments, shoes,
sports equipment and dozens of other items get the sugar-and-flour treatment in
sculptural cakes that are almost too beautiful to eat.
Award-winning sculptor Robin Antar doesn’t use food as a medium – she carves stone into
incredibly lifelike replicas of food including a ketchup bottle, candy, cookies
and soft drinks. The Brooklyn artist’s pop art sculptures have been featured on
HGTV and she’s currently working on a giant replica of a Heinz ketchup bottle
for the company’s corporate headquarters.
Chinese artist Song Dong and a cast of builders created this
‘Biscuit City’
in a London department store. The scene depicts a traditional Asian city complete
with a stadium and a church, and while Dong says he designed a few of the
buildings, they mostly made it up as they went along. An estimated 72,000
biscuits were used along with tea, caramels and fruit shortcake.
Ray Duey of Chef Garnish uses
apples, melons and other fruit as a medium for beautiful table arrangements.
Duey is an acclaimed produce carver who uses small, sharp tools to carve fruit
into stunning shapes and designs. Duey squared off against previously mentioned
produce sculptor James Parker in two Food Network Challenges, winning the first
one while Parker one the rematch.
This incredible artist animates food in ways you would never
imagine, transforming ordinary fruits and loaves of bread into pieces and parts
of strange stories, complete with offbeat implications, curious perspectives
and unique facial expressions.
Davin Risk, food sculptor and photographer, created three
entries for the “Make a Meatspace Shuffle” competition, which sought creative interpretations of the
iPod shuffle as food. The first was made entirely of goat butter, the second
was made of parsnips, the third was tofu and finally, the entry that proved to
be a winner was created from banana, spaghetti noodles and apple slices.
A contemporary artist that works almost entirely
in chocolate, Prudence Emma Staite wants people to experience her art with
all of their senses. She creates jewelry, paintings, sculpture, games and even
entire rooms from chocolate –but the sweet stuff isn’t her only favorite
medium. She also made sculptures of the Colosseum, Spanish Steps and Pope
Benedict XVI using enough pizza dough to make 500 pizzas for an exhibit at the
Museum of London.
I guess these wouldn't really be classified as art:

I guess these wouldn't really be classified as art:
But these are definitely cartoons:
I have to hurry up & finish my breakfast or I'll miss lunch!!----fishducky

Some of them are incredible. I don't think I could bear to eat them. Which could make for a great diet - my food is too beautiful to eat.
ReplyDeleteI would love some of those carved egg shells as a night light though.
DeleteNO food is too beautiful to eat!!
DeleteThese are incredible! I like the egg shell art and fancy cakes like that always amaze me.
ReplyDeleteLisa
Have you seen "The Cake Boss"?
DeleteNever watched it. Should I?
DeleteHe makes things like firetruck cakes that spray water, etc!!
DeleteI love the fruit and vegetable carvings, the eggs too, but I wouldn't want any of them as ornaments here. I'd break every single one the first time I swished a duster around.
ReplyDeleteThey're amazing, all of them.
My niece has an amazing chandelier. It's a bar with six ostrich eggs. They have star shaped pinpricks for the light to come through!!
DeleteI had to skip this post, I'm trying to lose weight.
ReplyDeleteI read your post--sorry if I tempted you!!
DeleteThose creations are really amazing. I finally realize how my parents stunted me by not letting me play with my food.
ReplyDeleteFood can be fun!! Remember Richard Dreyfus & the mashed potatoes in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"?
DeleteThat watermelon looked dangerous! And how ignorant I must be, I never heard of most of the artists you managed to dig up. Fascinating stuff..
ReplyDeleteI had never heard of them, either, until the internet found them for me!!
DeleteHuman imagination never fails to amaze me. I particularly love the carved egg shells.
ReplyDeleteI agree--they were beautiful!!
DeleteAt the Illinois State Fair every year they have a butter cow. The cow is behind glass, in a refrigerated area of course. I never felt that excited by the cow. Now if she'd been made of chocolate . . .
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
Now that would have been a horse--I mean cow--of a different color!!
DeleteThese are remarkable. The ones on eggshell are exquisite. I wonder how many he broke before completing them?
ReplyDeleteQuite a few, I would guess!!
Delete