Feasting Eyes

That most universal of topics, food, is the subject of the current show, Feasting Eyes: Artists Take on Food, at the Kenan Center in Lockport. The exhibit communicates various perceptions of food and the dining experience, presenting food in lush, plain, appetizing, unappealing, and decaying states. The show is organized along themes to give a sense of cohesion to the work of 23 artists.

Red Dragon Fruit, by Michael Morgulis

Ordinary household items we now take for granted, such as fruits, sugar, and ice, were at one time difficult to obtain. They connoted wealth and status.

Thomas Kegler and John Yerger paint fruits in highly detailed chiarascuro. In Grapes, Kegler parodies the portraiture of hung game by placing a batch of grapes on a hook, as if it were a pheasant. Yerger’s Renaissance-like piece Still Life (Fruit) gains a contemporary flair with the insertion of pears in a metal mixing bowl.

Katherine Gullo sculpts ceramic edibles, such as Pepper and Eggplant on Dish, and then paints them whimsically with bright colors and patterns. Fiber artist Barbara Murak creates life-like vegetables in Lettuce #2 and Radicchio. Doreen DeBoth’s Still Life with Cranberries and Pears is both painting and sculpture.

Food photographer Biff Heinrich showcases his subjects in a highly stylized manner with offbeat lighting. Michael Morgulis scans and photographs items bought from the Lexington Co-op. Closeups of his Blue Poblano and Red Dragon Fruit appear like alien creatures. Nancy Parisi photographs hands holding fruit and candy.

Other artists describe consumption as a ritual and focus for communal gathering. Photographer Marion Faller documents displays of food as cultural expression in pieces like St. Joseph’s Day Table, Cataract Lodge, Niagara Falls NY, an image of a lavish and mouthwatering buffet. In Real World, a merged table that at one end is rustic and at the other end is modern, Ryan Legassicke observes differences in time periods. There is no food, plates, or cups, but their charred imprints have been burnt into the table. Legassicke employed hot blown glass during a performance piece called Lunch, and placed the scorching hot dinnerware and utensils on the table.

Watercolorists Rita Argen Auerbach and Norine Spurling are represented by Fresh Harvest and Fauve Trees, respectively. Priscilla Bowen’s atmospherically moody pieces, The Ugly Celery Root has a Beautiful Taste and Meditative Study: Sprouting Ginger, render food items in an animal-like manner.

The painter Jackie Felix employs dramatic color contrasts in her compositions. Connie Minneci’s A to Z Women Artists Series are portraits of food inspired by well regarded artists such as Cindy Sherman.

The source of our food is a contentious issue these days. AJ Fries comments on the insubstantial sustenance of junk food in Teeth and Donut. A pair of dentures rests atop a glazed donut. The glaze oozes down the donut as though it were saliva from the false teeth.

James Paulsen's Skittles

Skittles by James Paulsen is a painting of the candy overlaid with the outline of children bicycling across the canvas. Paulsen criticizes the marketing of nutritionally deficient snacks towards youngsters through colorful cartoons and attractive packaging.

Tropicals, also by Paulsen, depicts a popsicle overlaid with the silhouettes of buxom dancing girls.

Christy Rupp’s New Labels for Genetically Altered Foods consists of plastic packaging examining the influence of bioengineering in our food supply. Christopher Stangler’s No Picnic and Blue Plate Special are commentaries on the disruption of the food chain by pollutants and environmental hazards. Blue Plate Special consists of an image of fish being fed by a tube filled with anti-freeze and mercury.

Stefani Bardin’s Eat This and 38 Degrees of Separation are video documentaries. Eat This is a photo diary of meals eaten over the course of a year. Her question was, “What does food mean to one?” Her philosophy is, “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.” 38 Degrees of Separation is a self-portrait of food found in her refrigerator, spliced with video from a film about the history and development of refrigeration.

Courtney Grim’s Handle Here and Snack Pack are large photographs of things like packaged cheese and bacon, which upon such close examination are less than appealing and border on the grotesque.

John Pfahl composes photographs out of the leavings of his compost pile, recording the decay of discarded leftovers. Kevin Charles Kline relates food to vanity, mimicking human efforts beautification—constricting an apple in Waist Binding, for example.

The show, curated by Gerald Mead, runs through October 5 at the Kenan Center, 433 Locust Street, Lockport (433-2617 / kenancenter.org).

—lucy yau