Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Turning food into art
Chef Paul, photographer Mashburn got something cookin’
Art of the Plate, a new exhibit at the Arts Center of the Ozarks, will be showcased at a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday at 214 S. Main St. in Springdale. The exhibit will run through Oct. 16 in the McCuistion Matthews Gallery at ACO.
The innovative exhibit features a collaboration between Jason Paul, owner and chef of Rogers restaurant Heirloom, and commercial/fashion/music photographer Meredith Mashburn and will use food as a medium in an “exploration of how food styling and high end culinary ‘plating’ can be captured in a photograph to create a lasting and memorable piece of fine art,” according to the ACO Facebook page.
The exhibit is the brainchild of Eve Smith, ACO’s director of visual arts.
“I’ve been following Jason and his restaurant Heirloom for a while,” she says. “When he would post pictures of his ‘plated food,’ I kept thinking that it looked more like art than food.”
Paul acknowledged the unusual nature of the project, saying that he was surprised by the proposal to produce food for an art exhibit “because it’s definitely not something you get asked to do every day.” However, he says he was immediately enthusiastic.
“As a chef these days, you have to make food look really beautiful, but, more importantly, taste amazing,” he says. “It’s a rare opportunity to get to create dishes that are ‘ingested’ 100 percent visually.”
Paul says that, despite the unique nature of the exhibit, documenting his food with photographs was not a completely foreign concept to him. “I think it was a bit of uncharted territory as an overall idea, but, in a strange way, it’s something very familiar. [Since we’re] running a restaurant and trying to keep relevant, social media is a huge tool for us. Our Facebook, Twitter and even my personal Instagram, as well, are all filled with pictures of food that I’ve plated and dishes we’ve served in the restaurant. So it’s a bit of a food gallery in itself,” he finishes with a laugh.
Mashburn was excited to sign on as well. “I loved the idea of food as art, and I have always been a fan of Jason’s food and signature food style,” she says.
The two found that a similar work style complemented their partnership. “Jason and I both have a free-flowing artistic process,” says Mashburn. “When we started shooting, the process took on a life of its own. Jason would start each plating [simply] and added and added until he felt it was complete, then we played with light and smoke and fire.”
Mashburn says the duo worked diligently to make sure a variety of styles was represented in the exhibit. “We wanted to show the plating in many different ways, ranging from traditional to nontraditional in terms of plating, styling and lighting.”
Paul has high hopes for the exhibit. “Using food as a medium for art is an untapped area to explore. It will be interesting to see how people react to it. To give a diner an amazing experience in a restaurant, you have to go beyond the plate of food itself and truly try to give the person having the meal a real, lasting
memory. The food itself is gone in minutes, but the way you felt eating it and the memory of who you shared that meal with can last forever. I feel like visual art can have a similar effect on a person.”
“I hope everyone will go home from the exhibit with a desire to play with their food and create art in the everyday,” says Mashburn.
For her part, Smith hopes the exhibit will help people see that art exists everywhere.
“I am so excited for everyone to see that art lives under so many other umbrellas than just the traditional subject matter we are used to.”