This piece was originally published in The Inquisitive Eater Anthology, which you can now purchase online.
Mira Jacob is the author of The Sleepwalkers Guide to Dancing (rh 2014), her next book is a graphic memoir called good talk (rh 2019).
Blurring the boundaries between traditional modes of painting Jiaranai Apaipak transforms still-life objects into sprawling landscapes. Jiaranai creates a world from food, candy, and desserts that are colored by her rich cultural background. While her relationship with color is directly a result of her early years living in India with its vibrant colors, her compositions draw from influences ranging from the old masters, abstract expressionism to Japanese Animation.
Born in Thailand, Jiaranai grew up in India, New Zealand, the United States and Canada. She received her BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2013 before moving to Toronto, Ontario to work as an art teacher and manager of a small art school. During her time in Canada, Jiaranai has also worked as a freelance portrait artist. She graduated with an MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 2017. Her paintings and sculptures are in private collections in Thailand, Canada, and the United States. Jiaranai has been a part of several group exhibitions in Nova Scotia and New York. She lives in New York and works in Jersey City. Website: www.jiaranaiapaipak.com Instagram: @Wookiepuff
Are chefs artists, technicians, or skilled laborers? Can food be a medium for expression, or is it just a meal?
Enjoy the video of the panel, organized by the Food Studies Program at The New School for Public Engagement in collaboration with SoFAB Center for Food Law, Policy & Culture and New York University, which addressed the complex relationships between food and art. The age-old questions of what qualifies as art and who qualifies as an artist are being framed in a new way and provocatively debated by panelists from various disciplines and professions, from artists to chefs and food producers. The panel was part of the national series CULINARIA Query, produced under the aegis of Culinaria, a scholarly monograph series published by the SoFAB Center for Food Law, Policy & Culture, in partnership with the Tulane University Law School.
Speakers include Fabio Parasecoli, Professor and Coordinator of the Food Studies Program at The New School, and will feature a panel of distinguished practitioners working in the food and beverage field: visual artists and crafts brewer Lauren Carter Grimm and Joe Grimm, co-owners of Brooklyn’s Grimm Ales; Michael Laiskonis, creative director at ICE; Nino Andonis, food photographer; Yael Raviv, Umami Food & Art festival director; and moderated by Liz Williams, President and Director of Southern Food & Beverage Museum.