Anyone who’s ever played with their food will have nothing but respect for Lauren Purnell’s work. The artist takes simple items found in any produce aisle and turns them into culinary canvases. The detail and accuracy is astonishing. Plus they look very tasty!
The Vancouver-based artist has been creating these festive works on Tumblr for about a year now. And I love how food was such a part of her childhood. I feel a certain kinship with her path.
“My father loves cooking and he would often create beautiful and creative dishes using healthy, fresh ingredients. He always had a vision of how the food would look when it made it to the table; he’d call it “painting”. The appreciation for food and art that I developed as a child has grown with me and it really came out in University when I started cooking for myself,” says the foodista.
But it was a meal with friends that inspired so much more!
“About a year ago I made dinner for some of my friends – spaghetti carbonara, I had spent quite a lot of time locating the ingredients (mostly all fresh), prepping and cooking the food, then plating and presenting the dish. Unfortunately, despite all of the time and effort put into making said dish, the meal disappeared pretty quickly without a moment given to appreciate its appearance. The conversation around the table turned to some topic or another so I kind of zoned out and started playing with the leftover bits of food on my plate, eventually deciding to manipulate them into a tree and that became my first “food art” – the “spaghettree”. After that the combination of food and art became a fun part of my culinary experiences and I’d get really excited about going to store and seeing what amazing naturally occurring colours that fruit and veggies have to offer,” she explains.
She says the hummingbird probably took between 40 minutes to an hour and the boat and bike took around 20 minutes. The assembly never takes too too long, taking the pictures afterwards usually takes a while depending on the time of day and the lighting.
