“Deceptively Delicious” is a 3-dimensional trompe l’oeil. It is a feat of technical virtuosity mobilized into an illusion of excess. At the STC Mid-Valley Campus Library Art Gallery, Alexis Ramos tricks the eye via growing the phantasm of critical pastries served in a beguiling combined media installation.
These works reference conventional Epicurean-styled desserts made from clay and glass, displayed with platters, plates, cups, and vessels to reflect an important occasion. All the pastry sculptures are positioned on unique tables. The man or woman pieces speedy supply manner to the general set up, welcoming the vacationer to a global of delicious implications.
“The wooden pedestals/tables were designed for this collection,” exclaimed Ramos. “They’re one hundred% reclaimed maple. I aim to fool both the eye and belly in hopes to have the viewer salivating at these deliciously misleading delicacies.”
The specially built tables and glass chandeliers suggest an elite atmosphere.
Ramos’ private affinity for the approach and discipline in pastry design stimulated her to wait for culinary college to pursue Wilton cake piping techniques. When her piped cakes took on sculptural attributes, she transferred to studio artwork to further her sculptural abilities.
She spent two years exploring clay slips to create illusions of cakes with frosting. Calcite slips that had the viscosity to hold a shape had been in the long run able to mimic the choppy strokes of carried out frosting, and a Majolica glaze that reflects like glass and captures the visible texture of frosting is the premise of the vibrant surface visible at the pink cake.
The slip-frostings were carried out during the clay pieces’ construction and then completed in an unmarried earthenware firing. She also demonstrates a heritage in the glass with cast-glass gelatins. However, there are some portions so imaginative that it’s hard to determine their specific medium. By ultimately fusing conventional cake adorning strategies with ceramic sculpture and glass, Ramos has created stunning illusions.
For the cake collection, there was a preference to explore the relationship developed with meals in the Latino culture — how it’s miles used to convey love, unhappiness, and have fun special activities.
“Food is a time for own family and sharing,” she professed. “There is no extra pleasure than when you consider that red pastry box for the primary time.”
And the manifestation of her pastry imaginative and prescient is glorious. But there is a flip facet: it also exists as an imaginative and prescient of extra. As regularly takes place with artwork, this set up has received its own voice, exceeding the artist’s intention. Fitting the show’s mood, references are made to pastries originating at some point of the French Rococo length, that’s historically remembered for its fabric and decorative excesses.
The Rococo ended badly. And the extra candy foods depicted in this show off can even end badly for those seduced via the enticement of gastronomic pleasure. This usa is currently suffering from fitness troubles for folks that yield.
Ramos says that her paintings can deliver awareness to the pandemic affecting South Texas and the health-associated headaches which could arise from the abuse of a social courting with food. Still, nothing within the artwork informs of a problem; simplest, the attraction is widely known. Ramos does no longer create ugly illusions.
“Deceptively Delicious” envisions ingredients that, unrestrained, may also carry happiness, however additionally harbor remorse. “Deceptively Delicious” gives many layers of issues, all of them worth pursuing.
