“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 by 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 delivers speedy supply 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 the eye and belly to salivate the viewer 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 were, 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 on 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, some portions are so imaginative that it’s hard to determine their specific medium. Ramos has created stunning illusions by fusing conventional cake adorning strategies with ceramic sculpture and glass.
For the cake collection, there was a preference to explore the relationship developed with meals in Latino culture—how they are used to convey love, unhappiness, and fun special activities.
“Food is a time for own family and sharing,” she professed. “There is no extra pleasure than considering 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 a creative and visionary extra. As it regularly takes place with artwork, this setup has received its 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, which isically 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 who yield.
Ramos says that her paintings can raise awareness of the pandemic affecting South Texas and the health-associated headaches that could arise from the abuse of a social relationship with food. Still, nothing in the artwork informs of a problem; simplest, the attraction is widely known. Ramos no longer creates ugly illusions.
“Deceptively Delicious” envisions ingredients that, unrestrained, may also carry happiness but additionally harbor remorse. It presents many layers of issues, all of them worth pursuing.
