Confectionery Colors: Creating Art With Food

Two artists are taking some of our favorite colorful treats and turning them into a new medium for their artistic expression.

Liz Hickok has taken each flavor of America's favorite gelatin desert and molded it into colorful models of San Francisco and Scottsdale. Since JELL-O isn't the most durable of materials, as part of the project she has two videos that capture these wonderfully sculpted cityscapes. You can see them here and here.

Working with gummy bears, Yaya Chou has created some of the most fascinating sculptures, the best being, of course, a bear skin rug.

San Francisco In Jell-O

This project consists of photographs and video, which depict various San Francisco landscapes. I make the landscapes by constructing scale models of the architectural elements which I use to make molds. I then cast the buildings in Jell-O. Similar to making a movie set, I add backdrops, which I often paint, and elements such as mountains or trees, and then I dramatically light the scenes from the back or underneath. The Jell-O sculptures quickly decay, leaving the photographs and video as the remains.

Scottsdale in Jell-O

From January 25 through January 30, 2007, Scottsdale residents and visitors had the opportunity to see the city in a new form. The Scottsdale in Jell-O project, was an assembly of hundreds of miniature buildings made of Jell-O, lit from below, and put on display for viewers to see and smell. The pieces represented both the existing area around the Civic Center and the envisioned areas around the new Waterfront development on the Arizona Canal, with future development cast as clear buildings and trees. The glowing backdrop of Camelback Mountain completed the scene.

Gummi Bear Series by Yaya Chou

In this series, I explored the relationship between food consumption and class. The bright colors and soft texture of children's snacks construct a romantic scenario which draws my attention to the dangerous ingredient behind them. By rearranging the embellished snacks in the forms of luxury commodity, I wish to pose the questions: Who consume these foods? Who has the choice to choose?

Photos from the Artists