Food never ceases to amaze, impress and surprise us: artificial sugar confectionery and cereals in synthetic pastel shades lure us from supermarket shelves in their eye-catching packages; we can prepare at home ultra bright neon frosted candy apples, and food designers – considered by the media as wise colourists rather than taste masters – delight us with extreme treats such as genetically modified bacteria used to make glow in the dark desserts. Yet, while we don't need researchers to tell us that, in times of crisis or under stress, most of us turn to visually appealing sugary foods, the psychological comfort that they can provide us assumes dark tones when we stop and think about the harmful ingredients lurking inside them.
Photographer James Ostrer analyses our obsessions with healthy foods as opposed with our craving for junk and sugary treats in his latest series of images, currently on display at the Gazelli Art House in London. For his new portraits, collectively entitled "Wotsit All About", Ostrer created human sculptures made of candies, jellies and strawberry laces. The artist covered his sitters in layers of tomato ketchup, crisps, biscuits, sweets, ice cream cones and chocolates, using these "materials" as if they were proper paint colours and creating disturbing visions in acid shades.
A few images have got something tribal and religious about them or borrow from pop and celebrity iconography; others look like perfectly composed Renaissance portraits smeared with pink cream and turned into grotesque characters.
Obsessed with diets, we collectively profess we love organic products and happily engage in silent conversations with healthy food and beverages talking to us in first person from their hip and trendy labels, yet we are spellbound by the textures, patterns and consistency of sugary confectionery. At the moment this is also a fashion trend: the Autumn/Winter 2014-15 season will indeed be revolving around a sugar binge with Anya Hindmarch's Tony the Tiger totes and Bourbon cookies clutches, Jeremy Scott's designs for Moschino inspired by McDonald's signature packaging colours or by crisps, cereals and jelly bears, and Manish Arora's candy cane stripes borrowed from the fictitious sugar lands of Wreck-It Ralph.
With his portraits Ostrer seems to bitterly laugh at us while exploring the cathartic possibilities of our sugar addiction and dividing us into modern tribes according to flavours and tastes. Ostrer's food monsters invite us to look at the perils and evils hiding behind inviting mascots à la Tony the Tiger, or behind the packages of other criminal delicacies in Tutti Frutti flavours and ponder a bit about food production and consumption, reminding us that, if all that glitters is not gold, all that looks appealing and sugary may not be that sweet after all.
The tribal sugar portraits in "Wotsit all About" hint at a series of issues, from food production and consumption to junk and comfort food, diets and celebrity icons as well. What inspired you to tackle these themes employing mainly confectionery?
James Ostrer: I think all these cultural activities are all interrelated: if we weren't all so obsessed with taking selfies and eating crap, we might actually wonder what the fuck is happening in the food chain and the rest of the world. I think a lot of these food types and certain forms of celebrity are super detrimental and just act as neurological inhibiters for thought and human progress. It's scary to have to face that we need to change and even more scary to realise what we are up against. I found using confectionery in these quantities a great medium for implying all the false promises we are given while at the same time understanding why we are drawn to them too.
In some cases your sugar monsters seem to melt in the pictures, is this a way to symbolically destroy or erase pop icons à la Mickey Mouse?
James Ostrer: The sculptures are what I imagined the archaeologists from another planet would find in the year 3000 if there is a worldwide Pompeii – I don't think they will be able to tell the difference between what was food and what was the packaging…
Your portraits are incredibly irresistible as viewers start craving sugar while watching them, but also feel sick and disturbed by what may look like a grotesque sugar monster staring back at them. We get mesmerised by a sort of sublime situation, and we are suspended between attraction and repulsion – was this one of the main aims of this project to make people ponder about more important food-related themes?
James Ostrer: That knife edge between attraction and repulsion is something that really interests me, especially most recently within the context of food consumption and production. I find totally fascinating the science between how far we can be taken as consumers in terms of minimal nutritional content while retaining desire. I wanted to play with these triggers that make us just want to consume without being interested in what chemical ingredients are being allowed into our food chain.
The colours in all the compositions look appealing and striking: did you have any portrait artists from the Renaissance in mind while creating these pieces?
James Ostrer: I have studied the Renaissance a lot over the years, so my understanding of the use of colour and composition has unquestionably been influenced. However, I didn't want any specific references in my studio while working on these as I wanted to channel an amalgamation of every image that I have absorbed over my lifetime in a pure undirected form. This could include memories of seeing the Mona Lisa for the first time in Paris when I was 12 or the images in a Pirelli calendar hanging at my mechanic's MOT garage.
Which was the most difficult portrait to compose?
James Ostrer: Logistically, the family portrait was the most difficult as there was more to sculpt. That and also my female friend in it has pretty much zero body fat, so she started violently shaking from being too cold almost 5 minutes in. She was so determined and awesome to carry on, but the super tricky bit was her facial features kept flying off…
Which portrait scares you the most and which one do you find irresistible and you would want to eat (sparing the sitter obviously!)?
James Ostrer: The emotions I get from the works continuously change but, right now, I feel so close to them all that none of them scare me. I wouldn't want to eat chunks off them either as I love them too much and have had a massive breakfast!
Did your sitters ever faint from the amount of candies and confectionery you poured on them and did they feel they were part of a cathartic process at all?
James Ostrer: No one fainted – thank God – but every range of emotion came out from people. That could include the tears of joy from someone that had left behind an eating disorder ten years previously and found this a defiant celebration; another example were two friends who are now trying to decide whether they are going to stay together because one wants a child and the other really doesn't. These differences apparently really came to a head after modelling for the family portrait.
Quite a few fashion collections for the Autumn/Winter 2014-15 season focus on consumption, sweets, candies and sugar 'crushes'. Why do you feel this theme is so fashionable at the moment and would you ever do a collection of T-shirts inspired by these portraits?
James Ostrer: It definitely seems like there is a zeitgeist situation with sugar and junk food in the arts and fashion this year and I think that's because these mediums when at their best are responding to what's going on both in terms of celebrating or questioning it. Regarding the T-shirts – I haven't thought about it, but when bands go on tour they only make money from merchandising these days, so now that I am only going to fly private jet I may have to sell some as well!!
Will you be taking "Wotsit All About" somewhere else after London?
James Ostrer: For sure. There isn't really a part of the world where these issues aren't current – whether that's Bahrain, which has one of the highest levels of diabetes on the planet, or the Australian outback, where the Aboriginal people are being robbed of their ancestral home via the immense pressure from the Australian government and, as a result, are falling into huge levels of alcohol addiction making it even easier for more of their land to be sold cheaply to mining companies.
Food will be the main theme of next year's World's Fair in Milan, and most curators and architects working on the pavilions are strictly following the brief, coming up with optimistic projects about organic food that employ sustainable energies. Though inspiring, these projects seem to be telling us a story about a utopian and unlikely happy future that may not happen, while your images act like the proverbial jester in the court – they make us ponder about our habits of food consumption while making us smile as well. Can art still be more powerful than "serious" projects allegedly developed for the benefit of society?
James Ostrer: There are definitely many problems to be addressed and, hopefully, people will try and work out some of the answers at events like the Expo. I believe the role of art within all of this is to make sure the questions keep getting asked and the answers challenged…
James Ostrer's "Wotsit All About" runs until 11 September 2014 at the Gazelli Art House, 39 Dover Street, London W1S 4NN, UK. With many thanks to James Ostrer for taking time out of his schedule to answer this questionnaire.
Image credits for this post
1. James Ostrer, EF 135.16, 2014, archival pigment print on diasec mount, 51 x 34cm
2. James Ostrer, EF 127.6, 2014, archival pigment print on diasec mount, 51 x 34cm
3. James Ostrer, EF 148.66, 2014, archival pigment print on diasec mount, 51 x 34cm
4. James Ostrer, EF 145.6, archival pigment print on diasec mount, 152 x 101.5cm
5. James Ostrer, EF 137.63, archival pigment print on diasec mount, 101.5 x 68cm
6. James Ostrer, EF 133.2, 2014, archival pigment print on diasec mount, 51 x 34cm
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Related articles
Rispondi