Someone must have told a few artists not to play with their food one too many times, to the idea that it turned out to be a defiant pattern for them. Some of these artists that we’ll discuss have used food as a recurring theme for their profession. These foodie artists have made some amazing pieces, from sculptures to paintings, and even whole rooms. However, depending on your taste, you may really like or dislike the end results. Did you know there have been villages made of bacon, and religious icons made of pizza? Well, there have been and, here’s a few others from the highlight reel.
Prudence Staite was a more contemporary artist. She wanted more though. She wanted to explore all of the sensations that she had been given. Like another artist that we’ll learn about later, Dieter, Prudence experimented with chocolate. From sculptures to jewelry, Prudence made art pieces as large as a room. One of her more memorable works included a sculpture of the Pope for a display at the Museum of London with so much dough that it could have made hundreds of pizzas. Literally.
Maurizio Savani is a Roman artist. They generated their world-wide following by creating full size creations of people and wildlife from gum. After realizing that gum was much easier to work with than clay, Maurizio started using this popular candy in the 90’s. It doesn’t stop there though. What Savani started set off a chain reaction that has since opened the door for other artists to come up with their own gum styles of art. Ben Wilson is one of them. This British artist is known for mushing gum into artwork across the sidewalks of London. Jeremy Laffon, from France, is another artist in the gum world. He prefers to make buildings and structural elements from gum. Another artist, Simone Decker, has launched a series of blobs of gum at conventions in Europe.
Artist Dieter Roth experimented with organic materials, including edibles, as a professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. Some of his unique attempts at art include smudging some banana and chocolate goodness onto canvas, towering some butter and chocolate on sculptures, and other odd positioning of food just to watch how they deteriorated.
You know what they say, “art is in the eye of the beholder.” Some may find this use of candy a bit odd. Whatever makes you happy though, right? What fun ideas can you think of to do with candy? Bust out some of your favorite sweets and see if you can’t get creative. You may be the next world famous candy artist.