EAT: An Art Space About Food 2

Given SCC’s location in the Strip District, Pittsburgh’s marketplace, we use this space to feature artists who focus on food in their work. As with our gallery exhibitions, these installations reveal the technical and creative processes artists use to make their art. They also relate to at least one of four key themes that inform all our programming:

Urban Experience—art reflecting the unusual materials, culture and energy of the urban neighborhood.

Art and the Environment—work revealing the connections between contemporary art and nature.

Art and Process—contemporary crafts highlighting the techniques, inspirations and unique visions underlying the creation of each artist’s work.

Crossing Cultural Boundaries—concepts challenging audiences to expand their thinking through multicultural and non-mainstream art.

EAT: An Art Space About Food

All Consuming

(February 3, 2012 - June 30, 2012)

Susan Myers’ metalwork and works on paper explore the paradox between materials, process and context as the artist surveys our modern way of life—what we consume, how we consume it, what we discard and disregard, and what we value.

All Consuming includes hand-fabricated objects from Myers’ Disposable Series, in which she reconfigures ubiquitous takeout containers; often incorporating reclaimed sheet metal cut from manufactured, silver-plated serving trays that are engraved and stamped with decorative motifs. Hundreds of these serving trays were produced by numerous companies in the U.S. during the 19th and 20th centuries and each company utilized various intricate patterns in the production of decorative silver-plated tableware. After fabrication, the artworks created using this found material are re-plated. On some of these objects the original hallmarks from the manufactured trays remain visible.

Completed in collaboration with master printer Cindi Ettinger, Myers created intaglio and relief prints that have been printed from “found metal”. The found metal, like in the Disposable Series, is cut and reclaimed from manufactured silver-plated serving trays engraved and stamped with decorative motifs. The artist explains, “I search out discarded trays at yard sales and thrift stores and use the printmaking medium to transform the textured metal surface into bold graphic representations that highlight the various intricate patterned designs on these forgotten objects. My prints are identified and titled by the hallmarks (Oneida, Gorham, Rogers, etc.) found on the back of each individual tray I reclaim.”

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