These artworks were originally sculpted in clay and plaster and cast in expandable insulating foam in 2014. In 2022, I decided to revisit these works via slip casting. I glazed the porcelain with cobalt oxide to bring out the details of each sculpted mouth. After bisque firing, I hand painted each cavity with delft blue and then selectively rubbed off the glaze to reveal details in the surface texture of the sculptures.
From the time I made the initial version of the sculpture to the time I made the last edition, there has been a global movement to phase out styrofoam as a single use plastic. I made these works in France, where polystyrene foam takeout containers were ubiquitous in at the turn of the century and banned by the time I made these artworks. The same was true for most of the EU. I moved to Ohio in 2022 for a teaching position and was shocked to discover that not only was styrofoam still everywhere, but municipalities were actually banned from enacting legislation to curtail its’ use, allegedly because such limitations would be “bad for business.”
Fast Food (Open) and Fast Food (Closed), 6″ x 5″ x 8″ each, porcelain. Edition of 8+1 artist’s proof for each variant. These artworks may be shown as a pair, as a series or individually.