Published Nov 2013, Issue 5 Renegade Collective Magazine (www.renegadecollective.com/).
There’s more to food than just eating it, say two French graphic designers, an American food stylist and a German photographer.
Words: Nancy Merlo
Fat & Furious Burger, Paris
French graphic designers, Thomas and Quentin, are two hungry guys that turned burger making into an art form with their slightly weird but undeniably wonderful website ‘Fat & Furious Burger,’ which features a mind-boggling selection of, well, burger portraits. From the Thatcher Burger to the gold-foil wrapped My Name is Bun, James Bun Burger – there’s no one and nothing these burger artists can’t reinterpret into a juicy burger bun.
After becoming bored with their regular lunches, the pair started improvising and experimenting with new ways of cooking burgers which quickly became, wait for it, a kind of ritual. Within an hour and half, they would have formed an idea, shopped at a supermarket for ingredients, and cooked and photographed their creation. While they never intended on creating a website, living in this smartphone age meant it was only natural they would take photos and share them with the world. More than 6,000 Facebook followers and just over 1,500 Instagramers now salivate over iteration they’ll create next.
But do they actually eat their bizarre burger combos, you ask? Of course they do! The boys try to shoot their edible artwork in just a few minutes so they can take their time eating it, although they never know exactly what the burger is going to taste like, or even look like. Sometimes they are pleasantly surprised, other times not so much…
“One of our favorites is the Neil Armstrong Burger. Though it wasn’t exactly tasty, it was the first of all that looked like something different, something you don’t usually eat,” they explain. The burger that was dedicated to the first man to walk on the moon was shot in a ‘galaxy’ made of sesame seeds and had a bun dusted with coconut shavings.
Thomas and Quentin often name and theme their burgers after the rich and famous, but are also inspired by newspaper headlines, pop culture and everyday life, recently creating a Fatter, Butter Burger Greaser in honour of Daft Punk and a toothy Brrrrgeur fit to ward off any Edward Cullen wannabe.
A Fat and Furious Burger creation: http://fatandfuriousburger.com/
Victoria Granof, New York
Victoria Granof is a passionate pastry chef-turned-food stylist who knows how to make food jump off the page and get your mouth watering, though the job isn’t always as glamorous as you might expect.
On any given day her tools of the trade can include forceps, wet sandpaper (to smooth peeled carrots and sometimes pears – who would have thought?) and car wax to rub onto fruit and vegies so water beads off in perfect rivulets. “We’re just wrapping up Thanksgiving season now, so in my kit is the remainder of a package of maxi pads, which we place on the platter underneath the turkey to absorb the excess (red) juices. Also heat-activated tanning spray to give the turkey that San Tropez tan,” she adds.
Despite a degree in visual arts, Victoria knew pretty quickly all she really wanted to do was cook and bake. And after she started dating a food photographer, she was introduced to the clever and at times, bizarre world of food styling. “I knew it could be the perfect combination of design and food, but I was stuck in Los Angeles and the only clients were fast-food chains, celebrities (who barely eat) and one food magazine. The photo director there took an interest in my work and sent me to New York to style a job for them with one of their New York photographers. The minute I got there I could feel that this was the place I could successfully combine art and food the way I wanted to do it,” says Victoria.
Since darting down that road, Victoria has worked with some of the best photographers in the world, including the late Irving Penn, best known for his fashion photography. She counts her time spent with Penn as some of the most memorable of her career and an education in itself. “He worked in complete silence. No music, chatting, nothing. Silence. It was deafening and inspiring all at the same time,” she explains.
Victoria describes the relationship between herself, food and art as one of the most important in her life. “When I’m styling food, the principles of design are what I call on the most: composition, direction, proportion, scale, colour, texture, movement, form, function – to create an image,” she says. “I adore colour and texture and sometimes I’m inspired by a chartreuse wall or a scrap of old, gnarled wood or a plum rotting on the sidewalk. To me, that’s all art. It’s not really about the food. It’s about the emotion.”
Dietlind Wolf, Hamburg
Designer, propstylist and photographer Dietlind Wolf transforms a Middle Eastern feast into an English setting of high tea. Take a bite and mess up her perfect balance of food and art if you will, and those images of Britain will disappear and the smells and tastes of Beirut will return. It’s just one way she messes with people’s heads.
It’s just one project of thousands which brought together watercolour on white paper with perfectly placed food morsels. “Prop styling is made for the moment of the shoot; materials don’t need to be washable or real, they just need to create a world for a moment,” she says. “My different studies in the past now allow me to combine worlds, techniques, materials and tools in a special way, giving me access to a huge toolbox,” she explains. “Colour concept, idea development and realisation is one whole process, and telling stories from my point of view is what I love most; I never know how it will turn out exactly, but this not knowing is very fulfilling because I may surprise myself… and maybe others.”
Dietlind says she spends her day creating masterpieces in a kind of organised mess and says the beauty of her life is that she doesn’t have a typical day; she has “habits, rituals and recurring workflows” instead. One day she might be researching, conceptualising or trawling through antique shops for props, another day you might find her shooting in different studios or at home, or in her ceramic atelier reworking wet clay.
nancymerlo 