I work with food, on food, and around food. The Japanese Zen concept of food as both sustenance and transitory perishable art, pleasing to the senses and meant to be ingested and transformed as life-sustaining energy, is an inspiration for my art media.
Past projects include portraits depicting Kamikaze pilots made from Koshihikari rice and Nori seaweed, two elements of Japanese cuisine of immense cultural importance, evoking notions of honor, history, and tradition.
Growing up both of my parents worked in the restaurant industry. My father, as a sushi chef, illustrated the interwoven concepts of composition and sustenance, color and flavor, food and art. The concept of continuity and evenness play a large role in my work. Made from food, my works are temporal, like life’s experience. They rot, edible yet timeless, a compelling statement to primary instincts. I aim to continue my study of the world’s culinary traditions, as well as artistic techniques that involve the universal language of food.
“Kamikaze Bento”, rendered in the media of rice and seaweed, are faces of sacrifice in the very mediums of the land and sea that sustained them and for which and in which they perished; a powerfully compelling, transitory, visually, physically and emotionally ingestible, digestible Zen.
