A Rediscovery of Food, my live painting on a 70s desk chair, is a piece that represents my journey of cooking as a picky eater. All of my life, I have been stubborn and selective of what kind of food I liked and what I was willing to try. As a child I always struggled with my diet and many people around me gave me a hard time about it. My mother at a young age labeled me as particular and it caused me to retreat even more into my shell in regard to food.

 

After moving to Toronto, I began discovering my own relationship with risk and choice, and I became intrigued by food and cooking. After a few years of teaching myself to cook, I found that many of the reasons why I didn’t like food was because of the way it was prepared. I now realize that the shock of new textures or flavour profiles was less about me disliking it and more about it be unfamiliar. I have come to realize that it is not fair to reject something based on the first encounter.

 

One food that I have always struggled with and was always pressured into trying, was bananas. I paint this symbol to attempt to reclaim it and wash away its association with the negative relationship I had with food as a child. I have chosen to use a Keith Haring inspired patterning to show how much of this journey was and is affected by who I surround myself by.

 

I choose to paint live to show that this process will always be an ongoing journey for me, and maybe one day I’ll get to a place where bananas and many other things, are no longer in the dislike category.

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See the final piece here.