The Arts Center | Arts at the Center of Life

EXHIBITIONS

Main Gallery

Finger Licking Good: Art about Food

Dates: Apr 26, 2012 to May 26, 2012
Brown Bag Talk: Thursday, May 17, noon - 1:00 PM
Reception: Thursday, May 3, 5:30 – 7:30

Participating Artist(s):
[Jump to the exhibit description...]

Finger Licking Good: Art about Food

Shadow puppet play date & time TBA

About the Exhibit:

‘Fingerlicking Good’ focuses on a topic that is of interest to all, but is especially targeted at elementary and middle school students. The exhibit will be concerned with food -- not nutritional values or growing techniques, but on the visual interest of specific foods and food production environments.

Foods we eat can be as simple as an egg, or as complicated as a multi-ingredient, many-step creation like a highly-decorated cake. Food production environments can range from the little radish patches many of us grew as children, through large agricultural conglomerates which steer engineering of food products.

A range of foods and environments are represented in the exhibit; some of the artworks have a serious subject matter, while others are more humorous. Artists working in painting, four different directions of photography, Japanese katazome (stencil dying) on cotton, ceramics, and non-art media are represented.

Some of the questions the exhibit strives to address are:

Where does modern food come from?
Agricultural tools including large machinery, green houses, and advanced sprinkler systems are elements of modern, large-scale food production. Pieces in the exhibit address the manipulation of food as result of large scale food production. A diversity of food products like cattle, chickens and eggs, fish, vegetables and spices will be portrayed in the exhibit, as well as what these food products need for ‘fuel’ to make growth possible.

Are M&M’s really food?
Just as people need art to thrive, we also need special sweets & treats keep our taste buds happy and intrigued. We may not eat M&M’s and potato chips for their nutritional value, but they are sure satisfying! The stove we see in a photo of an abandoned house in Eastern Oregon must have helped to produce its fair share of pies. The chips portrayed in the exhibit give a whole other meaning to the phrase ‘nutritional value’ -- if you are curious you will have to come and see the show!

What does it mean to paint a piece of cake?
In addition to celebrating the milestones of our lives, eating cake could be a celebration of different colors and textures! Since cake is such a familiar sight for us all, it is a real challenge to make an image look as good in a painting as we hope it might taste.