What room in a home is more full of transformation than the kitchen? We may all know by now that salt, fat, acid, and heat help add flavor and texture, but, as artist Nora Chellew asserts, one ingredient is also key in both food and art: time.
In The Salt That You Bring to the Table, now showing at Brick Aux in Williamsburg through January 29, Chellew uses “edible materials and objects as performers,” as she explains in our Q&A below. Like a kitchen, the exhibition has aural, visual, and olfactory components as common ingredients — an egg, an orange — became sculptures after hours, weeks, and Chellew’s inspiration press into them. Nifty and dreamy, the exhibition is a rumination on uncommon possibilities.
Greenpointers: Can you start by telling us about the origins for this exhibition?
Nora Chellew: This body of work began with the development of the hanging, moving eggshell pieces called Dowsing Drawings. With these works, I was exploring edible materials and objects as performers (sculptures creating drawings). Hollowing and dying eggs got me back into the kitchen in a sculptural way. I then found myself dabbling in food crafts that were old and new to me, including pomander-making and salt-clay-baking. I even picked up a kombucha scoby for the first time in a while, resulting in leathery sculpture experiments: all because of the eggs. I realized, through these materials, that I was investigating preservation techniques.
A lot of what you are representing in your art has a durational element: the ingredients went through phases in which they changed over time. When did you acquire your materials and how did time factor into your work?
Time is a big ingredient in this work. I collected my materials in order of how long their transformations would take. The first items I got were the citrus fruits that became the pomanders. An orange takes about four weeks to shrink-dry into a pomander whereas a pomelo takes over six weeks to pomander-ize. My next acquisition was the red cabbage I turned into blue dye for the eggs, then the eggs themselves. Alongside these quests, I was growing my scoby and testing out different colors and materials of ribbon. Last came the plaster, salt-clay, caramel, herb drying, and printing materials.
There is also an aural element at play; the pendulum movement of some pieces feels like a clock, specifically an old, ticking one that might be found in a retro kitchen. Can you discuss that impact or inspiration?
I’m happy that the Dowsing Drawing eggs have a cricket-like sound: It alerts folks to movement in a subtle woodland-cyborg kind of way. Since I’m so close to the project, I hear the squeak of the charcoal-covered eggshell against the wall more than the turn of the motor, so the sound reminds me more of sketching than the ticking of a clock. The auditory component is a happy accident, though the pendulum movement/swing is an intentional nod to scrying. Ultimately, I think the sound compliments the other extrasensory parts of the exhibition, such as the smell of the pomanders.
You’ve mentioned how a Catholic upbringing has infused your work. Can you discuss that and how it speaks to this exhibition?
Mystic notions of object power in the Catholic church affected my still-forming brain as a kid. At any given time, to this day, I am thinking about how an altar is just a table without a relic (the bone or possession of a saint). For this show, I explored how food objects are seasonal props of religious power and celebration: Panettone and pizzelles at Christmas; dyed eggs and marzipan lambs for Easter. The lamb form (a stand-in for Jesus) is something I have used in past works, and utilize in this show.
The kitchen is a place of sorcery; side question, do you enjoy cooking? Does it get as much attention as your art?
I do enjoy cooking, absolutely. I have a cooking routine in which I play my favorite radio DJ and get into a zone. I’d say I’m not too shabby, home-chef-wise. But, I’m not known for my cooking any more than my other talented friends are. I am part of a community of people who like to make food and are very good at it. Plus I have pals who can bake! I’m not a baker. If anything, I’m probably known for making my family’s simple but yummy tomato sauce. (Thanks for passing on the recipe, dad!)
Anything else you would like to add? Thank you!
I have to shout out my art community. There are so many names to name (please visit the exhibition website for more credits), but let me give special thanks here to Max Marrone, Kim Golding, and Alex Munro. Even solo shows don’t happen in a vacuum, and I think I won the lottery in terms of peer support.
I’m speechless.