MIXED EMOTIONS
February, 2020 through…
COVID-19 Pandemic-inspired work: As a reflection, specifically, upon those Grandmothers we have lost; along with their recipes and memories of foods they prepared. With the series, I meditatively cut apart 100-year old cookbooks and, in a Duchampian act, recreate and invoke the sentiment of the foods that have been cooked from those books and served upon the fine china, cutlery, and utensils once utilized by families and are now discarded or sold.
comfort from grandma’s kitchen
Created as part of the Sanchez Art Center 50x50 challenge
September, 2020
With the arrival of COVID-19 at the beginning of 2020, many of us began a life of seclusion in the act of sheltering in place. To combat the anxiety of a future unknown, of a week or two of isolation turning into months of solitude, many of us began stress baking or anxiety cooking. As a salve for the unease of this troubling existence, bread baking alone caused a national shortage of flour and yeast, and a flurry of recipe-sharing on social media. I saw these angst-ridden gastronomic endeavors as more than just a way to kill boredom, but a global invocation towards the creation of that which one finds comforting: favorite foods from our childhood. The act of baking comfort foods became an entreaty to our subconscious to recreate those ancestral flavors, family security, and sense of home found in the kitchens of our mothers and grandmothers.
After deciding the recipe and appropriate utensil for each piece, I began painting the board to illustrate the main ingredient of the recipe. In an homage to all our grandmothers who cooked for us, these artworks reflect our desire to bring our ancestors back into our hearts and stomachs, through the foods that they once prepared for us: to help us heal, ease our suffering, and nourish our bodies and our souls.
Salacious Tarts
Created as part of group exhibition, Waste Not, Want Not
ACCI Gallery, Berkeley, California
August, 2020
Arm Candy – An Exhibition of Food as Jewelry and Body Adornment
Curated by Carolyn Tillie for
ACCI Gallery, Berkeley, California.
June 25 to July 16, 2019
Feast Your Eyes
Curated by Carolyn Tillie for
Root Division, San Francisco, California.
April 3 to April 19, 2019
Alchemical Tools of the Kabbalah
SCULPTURES CREATED BY CAROLYN TILLIE
November, 1997