feast: food represented in the visual arts

Feast: Food Represented in the Visual Arts

Dates: January 26–March 8, 2024

The Mosesian Center for the Arts invites artists to submit work inspired by food. Depictions of food have been around since antiquity. In mosaics and frescos from Roman times, wine, fruit, bread, and grains have been depicted in private houses and temples. In later centuries, paintings portraying both religious and secular themes often incorporated food and drinks. The still life genre pioneered by the Dutch and Flemish masters has endured for centuries. From the early representations of lavish food displays of grapes, lobsters, game animals, and exotic fruit to the still life paintings of Cezanne and Warhol’s Cambell soup cans, artists have been fascinated by food. It is imbued with symbolism and is often used to make commentary on economic and social issues. In earlier times, food still life paintings represented wealth, and some illustrated the simpler meals of bread and fish of the less prosperous. Throughout the centuries, religious and symbolic works of art often incorporated fruit and other foods to express ideas of knowledge and enlightenment, to represent the cycles of life, death, and notions of good and evil.

Today we are surrounded by images of food. With Instagram feeds dedicated to depictions of food to professional food photographers, food is not only sustenance but also indulgence, comfort, and an aesthetic experience. Our relationship with food is complex. We categorize food, often in a very black and white manner, as good and bad, or addictive and life sustaining at the same time. As a society, we acknowledge both the lack of food and overindulgence as problematic. Because of our current state of global interconnectedness, food from various parts of the world is available and has been incorporated in our life.

Mosesian Arts accepts artworks of all media such as painting, printmaking, drawing, illustration, photography, 3D, mixed media, and video that uses food as inspiration. The work can be anything from a still life painting to art pieces using food as a commentary on contemporary issues such as food scarcity, how food is produced and processed, ethical, and not so ethical practices around food, or using actual food as a part of the work. The work can be representational or conceptual in nature.