Cornucopia: Amuse-Bouche at the Hunt Library, Falls Village
A frolicsome display of food-themed art opened at the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village, CT on October 15. Curated by Garth Kobal, the show teases our taste buds with an array of delectable work. These artists know that food is fun, and leave worship at the Altar of Foodie in the vegetable peeling bucket back in the kitchen. Instead, they find, whimsy, obsession, drama, abstraction and heart in our relationship to the culinary.
Janet Andre Block plops a fantastically luscious pear before our eyes, daring us to see it as more abstraction than fruit. Her glowing hues beckon the eye, reminding us that food aesthetics engage all the senses, et bonjour, Cézanne. Sergei Fedorjaczenko’s “Epicurie Centrale” watercolor focuses attention on café bonding, situated a peach pit’s throw from the French grocer’s inviting fruit boxes.
Likewise, Terry Wise evokes the rituals of mealtime with her carefully laid plates arranged around garden bounty, “Outside In.” Wise explained “Those dots of white running off the tablecloth are improvised decor — a mouse ran through the wet paint.”
David Noonan’s serious moka pot with garlic betrays an obsession with essential ingredients, suggesting that a lifestyle of espresso and the vampire-safe herb fortifies the soul. Noonan can slice and dice the world of iconography with a burnished realism full of depths.
Probing the familial ritual of Lunch, Robert Cronin paints a Hopperesque trio hovering over a plate of peas, where suspicion dominates the dynamics and psychology trumps palate. Empty plates fuel curiosity and intensify the family drama.
A tightly composed Fried Egg by Elizabeth Buttler satirizes the perfected plating expected of fine dining, while balancing force lines like a precisionist painter. Skillet and egg seem to have a fraught love affair going, while the frowning gas stove provides an unapproving flame.
Serena Granbery contributes Arise, a massively layered white stone sculpture that resembles a cabbage. But she told me “This was a kiln disaster; I was firing a large egg shaped sphere and it blew up. I had a wonderful time refining the remnants.” The deftly nested pieces recalled the meticulous practices of archaeology where every shard displays its own precious identity.
Thingmaker, Richard Griggs hangs whimsical mobiles constructed of his preferred upcycled materials; Meatballs with Forks and Spoons, insouciantly spin above the show. Also shaped of found materials, Sue Berg’s County Fair Cake playfully excavates the patriotic symbolism abundant on everything from hand-painted furniture to frosting. In her hands, decorative folklore functions as witty commentary on our cherished mythologies.
The whimsical and attentive fauna on Erika Crofut’s majolica platters dare us to find our inner child, poised to caper in an eternal Garden of Eden. Crofut’s work inhabits a world of imagination, celebrating the joy of creative life. And indeed, the Hunt Library nourishes the soul with cultural feasts that know the belly, the brain and the spirit share aesthetic terrain.
