Sweetness and Light

Art Made Of or About Candy, Cakes, and Sugar.

All of the artists in this show use candy, cakes and sugar as an image or a medium to either understand a cultural convention or circumvent its resulting habitual thinking.

Works in the exhibition include a fully functioning gummi bear chandelier, candy button murals, a full size wedding cake balanced on a red hand, licorice mice addressing genocide and a motion graphic charting an entire day’s glycemic index.

Featured Artists: Richard Baker, Tom Bogaert, Ya Ya Chou, Sally Curcio, Lori Ellison , Emily Eveleth, Linda Griggs, Julia Jacquette, T. Charnan Lewis, Christina Marsh, Tracy Miller, Mary Schiliro , Rebecca Siemering, Lynn Talbot

Curator’s Statement:

As we measure our lives from the birthday cake to the wedding cake to the grief buffet., food has many meanings. Through every regional recipe and religious dietary restriction, our food-ways define us as much as our folk-ways and word-ways.

And when artists use food as medium, different meanings emerge. All of the artists in this show use candy, cakes and sugar as an image or a medium to either understand a cultural convention or circumvent its resulting habitual thinking.

In doing so, some use food as a metaphor for such varied issues as genocide in Rowanda, sublimated sex or disappointing relationships or to illuminate the lack of any nutritive quality in supposedly edible objects.
Others use the luscious tactility of sweets as a logical and natural starting point for in indulging in luscious painting.