Kathleen Elliot: Questionable Foods

In “Questionable Foods,” Kathleen Elliot still makes some use of glass but combines and juxtaposes
her own flameworked structures and more manufactured-looking commissioned vessels with
contemporary food packaging to explore some of the ways in which we are manipulated into
consuming physically unhealthy and environmentally harmful products. The more recent series,
Elliot again makes use of glass but incorporates collage elements to address the developed
world’s problematic relationship with nutrition and the political and economic manipulation that
surrounds and shapes it. Using gaudily designed packaging from cereal, candy, and other products,
she questions the promise of independence, flexibility, and fun they hold out. What, she asks, are the
physical and societal costs of accepting commercial hype and prioritizing convenience over lasting
health? “Questionable Foods” collages and constructions made partly or entirely from packaging,
become a tool for piercing the field of hyperbole and manipulation that surrounds the relentless
marketing of food as a commercial product.