Contemporary art served sunny side up at the Great Park Gallery in Irvine
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At the Great Park Gallery in Irvine, visitors have the chance to walk on eggshells.
The surface in question is part of an installation from Seattle-based artist Eriko Kobayashi called “Sunny Side Up.” Two sculptures made of glass eggs, sunny side up, float in front of an orange and blue sky painted on the wall. Below, glass-blown “eggplants,” green stems with white eggs perched on top like a tulip bulb, sprout from the eggshell-covered ground.
The work is featured in the gallery’s latest exhibit, “More Than You Can Chew.”
“It is deigned for the audience to walk through the eggshells,” said Adam Sabolick, arts program coordinator for the city of Irvine. “It is a very specific sensation.”
“More Than You Can Chew,” on view through April 20, showcases contemporary artworks that use food as a way to examine culture and politics. Co-curated by Sabolick with Andrea Chavez, the group exhibition features 17 artists from around the world who use a multitude of techniques to express their viewpoints.
For Kobayashi’s meditation on eggs, she worked with a bakery to collect the shells and cleaned them by hand for the installation.
“For me, a sunny-side-up egg is an icon that celebrates the morning,” Kobayashi’s artist statement reads. “Each morning, when I crack an egg and drop it into a hot pan, a unique shape emerges in white with a sizzling sound. Every day, the egg white appears to repeat itself, yet it never takes the same shape. To me, it seems like a cloud, the shape of the clouds in the sky is never the same.”
The delicate shells crumble beneath the feet of gallery visitors with a satisfying crunch. The details of the work, like a glass raw egg sliding through the shells, are a testimony to Kobayashi’s ability as an artist.
“There is this lightheartedness to the work but also the skill set of producing glass work like this is somebody who is clearly well experienced,” said Sabolick.
Other exhibiting artists include Paola de la Calle, Edward Givis, Jody Joyner, Amy S. Kauffman, Alicja Kozlowska, Thomas Linder, Dustin Metz, Baby Mueller, Andrew Orloski, Kristopher Raos, Colin Roberts, Luke Rogers, Kim Rugg, Henrik Munk Soerensen, Michael Thế Khôi Trần and Sarah Anne Ward, each using different media and processes.
“With this exhibition, there are a lot of different forms of painting represented and forms of sculpture represented,” said Sabolick.
Colin Roberts, a Los Angeles-based artist, commissioned a sculpture specifically for the show, “Big Banana,” a large-scale realistic sculpture of the ripe fruit, complete with spotting.
“It is kind of a reflection on the process of aging and the psychology of going through life experiencing things that kind of leave a mark on you,” said Sabolick.
Nearby, sculptures of a smaller scale from Alicja Kozlowska include a can of Heinz baked beans, bottles of Coca-Cola and a can of sardines that look familiar. But upon closer examination, it becomes clear the unassuming objects are soft sculptures fashioned from art quilt, a creative textile, and finished with embroidery to appear realistic. A cluster of figs made of deep purple patterned fabrics and adorned with glass beads and Lego pieces for the seeds, stems and flesh, sparkle like freshly cut fruit.
The skills of the culinary and fine arts worlds collide in the work of Henrik Munk Soerensen, whose pieces are carved from wood using only hand tools.
“What is also important to note about Henrik’s work is he studied gastronomy, so he is a chef in his own right and has this insane understanding of food through a culture lens, and a chemical lens and dietary lens,” said Sabolick.
After studying food, Soerensen earned his master of fine arts, and Sabolick said it is easy see the artist’s eclectic background present in the work.
A block of wood is chipped away at, peeled almost, to reveal a ceramic dish filled with the messy remnants of a lasagna dinner. The peaks and valleys of the leftovers reveal stratification not unlike a raised-relief map. The detailed painting on the wood emulates the look of a ceramic baking dish complete with a poppy design underneath the slick of red-orange grease.
“He uses the oil paint in so many different ways. The flowers that are a decorative part of the dish are oil painted, and all of the parts that represent the juices of the dish are also oil painted,” said Sabolick.
Paintings from Orange County-based artist Edward Givis focus on the beauty of everyday objects and fleeting moments so often overlooked: a perfect slice of cherry pie, for instance.
“He calls his work ‘the most beautifully generic moment,’” said Sabolick. “You can take something as simple as a slice of pie or strawberry cake and elevate it through the process of how it is painted and the attention to detail you put into the colors describing a shadow.”
The paintings are comforting in their familiarity, and up close the deep precision used to blend together the colors that make up a graham cracker crust deserve the viewer’s admiration.
Despite the rain on opening day, Jan. 26, nearly 300 visitors showed up for the exhibition, a testament Sabolick said, to local interest in food as well as a connection to art.
“Everybody has different taste and everybody wants something different out of art, and I like being able to tell a story through a range of approaches,” he said.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the Great Park is hosting art activities, including DIY button-making on Feb. 1 and an Origami for Breakfast event on April 19, in which visitors can learn to fold a paper breakfast. Live Jazz is scheduled for the Palm Court on Feb. 14, March 15 and April 19.
The Great Park Gallery is located at 8000 Great Park Blvd. in Irvine, and admission is free. For more details on art activities and hours of operation, visit cityofirvine.org.
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