Fry Up

  • Gala Bell

In a cross over between the comfort of the kitchen and the dominion of the studio, it felt perfect that any artwork should undergo hot oil in the method of deep-frying. The alchemy of painting is surprisingly close to the recipe and material substances of batter – egg yolk in tempera, linseed oil mixed with pigments, the ground white powder of gesso, the heat and energy of hands. Both the space of the kitchen and the space of the studio operate as a lab of material transformation. Great affliction precedes enlightenment. Highly caloric food bears the traces of less prosperous times, and can explain how the material conditions of existence have a significant effect on our choices. Deep frying is a ritualistic purging, originating from missionaries in Portugal who used it as a way to fulfil fasting and abstinence rules around the ember days, Quattuor Tempora. It travelled to the port of Nagasaki and detonated as a street food that later climbed from fish mongers to haute cuisine, fried food is part of a collective effervescence. Resplendent, silvered heat simmers, it is roasting, blazing in sterling brilliance the movement of foil drones.