Yukiko Morita, Pampshade by Yukiko MoritaSociété nationale des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France
Round loaves of bread, and their cousin the baguette, are omnipresent in the daily lives of French people. A good group in and of itself, something to be shared, and a culinary treat, bread is also an infinite source of inspiration for artists.
Paintings, art installations, photos, repurposed raw material, there's no shortage of ideas and talents, across time and from a range of backgrounds.
Izuyo0719, bread Eiffel Tower by izuyo0719Société nationale des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France
Izuyo0719
Izuyo's incredible loaves of bread
Izuyo is a Japanese housewife who spends all her time working on her passion. She makes pain surprises out of sandwich bread. Slicing the bread open reveals exceptionally detailed characters and scenes: maneki neko, flowers, scenes from everyday life, historical scenes—she's not lacking in inspiration and doesn't shy away from a challenge. She makes these loaves of fun colorful using all-natural food coloring like cocoa, beetroot, or even spinach!
Isabelle Tournoud, "Faut pas jouer avec la nourriture" (You mustn't play with food)
Isabelle Tournoud draws, sculpts, composes and brings together art and the world of childhood. In 2008, as part of an exhibition titled "Ça se mange des yeux" (A feast for the eyes), she brings together food and the world of childhood. She created this piece, A cabin that, for some, evokes the one found in Hansel and Gretel. Made entirely of unsold baguettes, she turns bread—the cornerstone of French diets—into an artistic object.
Yukiko Morita
Yukiko Morita's creations are sold under the brand name Pampshade, a portmanteau of "pan," meaning bread in Japanese, and "lampshade."
Before becoming an artist, Yukiko Morita was a baker. Throwing away unsold bread would upset her, and it's because of this that she got the idea to make bread into art and to wear many different hats.
She bakes the bread before removing the crumb and filling the inside and outside with resin, which ensures that the bread will not go bad. Then, she adds LEDs. But she also works together with bakeries to collect their unsold loaves.
The Japanese artist, based in Kobe, makes eight different kinds of bread lamps: two different sizes of baguette, two types of croissant, small loaves, a traditional bread roll, and two kinds of sandwich bread. Although the croissant is hugely successful, the creator has her own preference: "The baguette model is my clear favorite. It is both very simple and very beautiful," she says.
Pixel Pancho, street artist
Pixel Pancho is an Italian artist who was born in Turin in 1984. He learned about color and form from his grandfather. He then gains a name for himself using a spray can and a marker, and soon finds a place in the world of street artists by painting in the streets of Spain and Italy. He left his mark on Vitry-sur-Seine, France's kingdom of graffiti, with a piece focused on the theme of predilection: the robot, here decked out in symbols of French culture: the beret and the baguette.
Antoni Miralda was a Catalan artist born in 1942. A fashion magazine photographer, then a sculptor and artist, from 1967, he began to produce works with food and found considerable success. From Paris, to New York, to Australia, his work was in very high demand. His creations were made of food dyed in various colors, with the aim of achieving a dazzling color effect, as is the case in this work produced in 1973 in Sydney, in which bread is an artistic subject in and of itself.
Fabrice Hyber
The French plastic artist Fabrice Hyber came up with the idea of making an edible piece in the south of France, at the heart of the breathtaking Le Palais Idéal (Ideal Palace) built in Hauterives by the mailman Ferdinand Cheval. The edible cage is a structure made out of baguettes, baked by the village baker. Inside, two birds interact with their environment, by choosing to eat the bread or not.
