Art Gallery, Page 1

Candy Into Art

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Amanda MacDonald: 1000 Kisses

Toronto artist Amanda MacDonald just had her first solo show titled XO at WARC Gallery in her home city. The signature work of the show was the assemblages of what appeared to be chocolate kisses slathered in pink nail polish. MacDonald worked with actual chocolate originally, but discovered certain drawbacks (art that melts, number one). Now she works with concrete Kiss replicas. Other works in the show feature collages of thousands of Kiss paper flags onto which various images are superimposed. See more at MacDonald’s website http://www.amandamacdonald.ca/amART.html

Sugar Sculpture: The Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie

Each year, the finest pastry artisans in the world gather for the World Cup of Pastry, the Coupe du Monde. Since the revival of sugar pulling and sugar blowing arts in the 1980s, specialists have developed incredible skill and art in this edible form. The top sugar artists in the world compete each year in this international competition. The only rule governing their creation is this:

One dessert for presentation purposes, to serve 6 persons, to be integrated in a sugar creation composed for 2/3rds of cooked sugar (drawn, blown, cast), maximum size (125cm x 40cm x 60cm).

The work with sugar creates a vibrant depth of color and luminous transparency like blown glass. More amazing creations from the 2009 competition can be viewed in the Coupe du Monde Sugar Gallery.

Bubble Gum Alley, San Luis Obisbo

Along both sides of a narrow alley between a parking lot and a shopping street you’ll find Gum Alley. I admit, my first reaction to this public, collective project of gum accumulation was “yuck,” followed by “at least they didn’t drop it on the ground.” But the lumpy stylings of accumulated gum in every color stuck with me. Most of the gum is free form, but a there are also abstract and figurative stylings accenting the walls. There is even a gum “self portrait” at one end. But to my eye, its the gum itself, not what you can make of the gum, that makes this so distinctive (in a disgusting sort of way). Locals date the beginnings of the gum project to the 1950s.

Candy Fab: The Evil Mad Scientist 3D Fabricator

This is a rendering of the sculpture Soliton by Bathsheba Grossman, as output by the CandyFab 4000, a 3D printer that has been outfitted to print in sugar rather than plastic. This is the work of a slightly deranged project called “Candy Fab” under the aegis of a group of techie hackers calling themselves the “Evil Mad Scientist Project.” This sugar Soliton was made in 2007; currenty, the Candy Fab people seem to have moved on to other projects. But more sugar output can be browsed at the Candy Fab flikr group. Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oskay/ / CC BY 2.0

Ya Ya Chou

Artist and film-maker Ya Ya Chou came to the U.S. from Taiwan to study experimental animation in 1997. Since then, her animated works have received numerous awards and been screened internationally, including showings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her work in clay and scene design in film led to an interested in sculpture and fine arts. Ya Ya Chou says of her Gummi Bear Series:

In this series, I explored the relationship between food consumption and class. The bright colors and soft texture of children’s snacks construct a romantic scenario which draws my attention to the dangerous ingredient behind them. By rearranging the embellished snacks in the forms of luxury commodity, I wish to pose the questions: Who consume these foods? Who has the choice to choose?

Chou has also worked in licorice lace, as well as more conventional materials including paper, clay, and metal. More of Chou’s work can be seen on her website: http://www.yayachou.com/ For more on Gummi Bear artists, see Candace Taylor, “Eye Candy: Artists Discover a Novel Use for Gummi Bears” from Columbia News Service.

Christina Liedtke

This dress, made entirely of Peanut M&M Wrappers, was crafted by artist Christina Liedtke for TerraCycle’s Greenup! Popup Shop in New York City, April 2010. The dress uses over 600 wrappers cut and fashioned into 1,800 flowers. It took 100 hours to make.

Peggy Dembicer

Peggy Dembicer used some 100,000 beads to make this replica of the 1978 CandyLand game board. She completed the work in 2006. You can see some of Peggy’s other incredible bead projects and weavings at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dembicer/

Charlotte Kruk

San Jose (CA) artist Charlotte Kruk began making wearable art pieces out of discarded candy wrappers in the 1990s. She has received a “cease and desist” from Mars, Inc. for her troubles; evidently her version of recycling offends the Mars idea of copyright. Kruk says of her work:

Genuinely purchased, meticulously unwrapped, consumed, and conscientiously collated, each wrapper is carefully stitched side by side to create new textiles, which beg to be evaluated…scrutinized. These wearable sculptures are designed to “slyly wink” at a culture that often compares women, particularly well-dressed women, to decorations, consumables, “eye candy”.

More wrapper sculpture at her website, http://www.kruktart.com/

And here is a gallery of candy-wrapper fashion including pieces by Kruk and others, from the website Urlesque.

Hershey’s Chocolate Milk

These are screen-shots from an iPhone app developed by Versatile for Hershey’s Inc. This chocolate milk app from Hershey’s is advertising, of course, but there’ s also something terribly clever and pointless about an app that does nothing but simulate the making and drinking of chocolate milk. Slurping sounds included. App available free at itunes.

Donny Johnson

Incarcerated, self-taught artist Donny Johnson uses pigments leached from M&M candies, Kool Aid, and other prison commissary items to create amazing abstract works. His paintings are have been displayed in gallery shows, and he sells his postcard sized works for up to $500 a piece. Some see in Johnson’s complex colors and expressionistic forms shapes an inspired work pulsing with “memory and longing and madness.” (New York Times 7/21/06)

Donny Johnson website

Andy Yoder

Andy Yoder’s large scale work “Licorice Shoes” (2003) has been shown at the Winkelman Gallery, Pulse, and through Saatchi Online. What I love is the way licorice is assembled to create the rough texture of shoe leather. I’ve definitely eaten licorice that resembled leather, but never tried eating the shoes.

More Andy Yoder at www.andyyoder.com

Ivan Day, Royal Sugar Scupture

This monumental molded, sculpted and gilded sugar center piece is the work of British culinary historian and confectioner Ivan Day. In 2002, Day worked as a guest curator with the Bowes Museum on an exhibit documenting this historical art of sugar scupture, an imporatant decorative art at royal tables in the 17th-early 19th centuries. Day worked from period drawings and moulds to re-create the lavish centerpieces and fancies that would have decorated the finest, most luxurious tables of Europe. While they are theoretically edible, it is not likely anyone would have enjoyed eating the “pastillage,” a sort of sculpting dough made of sugar and gums.

More historical sugar replicas, as well as original sugar molds and drawings, at http://www.historicfood.com/Royal-sugar-Sculpture.htm