Chocolate & Oats, 2015-2018
original photographs
Chocolate & Oats is a piece that showcases my love of oats as well as my interest in using food as a medium for self expression.
Each bowl of oats was created, shot, and edited by me. Over the years, I have created hundreds of bowls of oats, but I chose 16 whose colors, textures, and composition seemed to me the most intriguing. In effect, the bowl functions as a blank canvas onto which I project my feelings using food as my material. Placing the bowls in a grid format serves to situate each individual bowl within a larger system, much like Andy Warhol did with his Campbell soup cans piece, wherein by virtue of repetition and copy, the bowls eventually lose that which makes them unique. For this piece, the aim was more to blur the boundaries between the abstract and the recognizable. Looking at one picture, it is clear that it represents a bowl of oats with “stuff” on top, but as I multiply and arrange them in a regulated form, the photographs become hard to identify. Thus, the eponymous grid format contributes uniformity while also allowing each bowl’s idiosyncrasies transpire.
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Oats: nourishing, delicious, comforting
Ambrosia
Toasty pleasure
Scrumptious simplicity
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All of these pictures are featured on my Instagram food blog chocolate & oats! You can also click here for more the pictures.
Enjoy :)
Oats truly are one of my favorite ingredients. Not only are they nourishing - filled with vitamins and minerals, slow carbs, fiber, and protein - but they are also extremely versatile and comforting to the soul. This piece is an ode to these little morsels of joy.
I enjoy oats both sweet and savory, and anytime throughout the day! There are many ways to play around with them using various flavor profiles, pairing them with different toppings, and even changing the types of oats you use! Yes, there are many varieties of oats out there :)
I hope you enjoy!