The Fried Dough Ho

Nuts about Donuts!

Originally uploaded by 2composers

Selling some dessert-themed jewelry at The Fillmore Jazz Festival, a guy stopped by and told me the name Jay Mercado, artist.

A San Francisco-based artist, Jay is another artist exploring the world of doughnuts and — it seems — he also teaches classes on doughnut painting. He has blogged about his doughnut paintings, but oddly does not include them on his professional website. Perhaps because he doesn’t consider doughnuts serious art. If you ever see this, Jay, I’ll refer you Emily Eveleth who has made a career in painting hyper-realistic doughnuts.

I particularly enjoy the photo which I found online, with the gallery opening reception providing an ample doughnut reception with the array of artwork on display in the back. I can’t tell exactly when the photograph was taken (all I can see is August 9, but who knows what year!), but at some point I will be tracking down the work of Jay Mercado, perhaps to acquire my own doughnut art.

You know I get pretty excited when I find a new fried dough adventure. Usually it is something I actually eat, but more and more often it is an artistic expression of my favored food which makes me giddy. And it was a link to Pennsylvania artist Susan Biebuyck which brought a big smile to my face.

Apparently mostly known mostly for painting pears and some Plein Air, Biebuyck’s entire oeuvre of sweetened goodies which, in their Wayne Thiebaud-style, drew me in. She has a playful way of expressing the culinary delight and I invite you to take a look at her individual doughnut portraits – it seems you can buy individual doughnuts for $125 each or cluster a dozen on a wall for $1,000. I wish I had wall space.

I would like to introduce you to Emily Eveleth. Well, truth-be-told, *I* would like to be introduced to Emily Eveleth but the least I can do is introduce you to Ms. Evelth’s amazing artwork. I first saw her work on the cover of Gastronomica in the Winter of 2003 but I will readily admit that it did not have that much of an impact on me then. Yes, it was a very pretty image of a jelly doughnut and one could easily think it was a photograph. That picture, by the way, is entitled Nigh and was painted in 1998.

It was several years later when I attended Art Basel in Miami Beach, Florida in December of 2007 and I saw it (or another from that series) in person that the full effect hit me. Her paintings are HUGE. The one I saw in person was more than 8′ square. And while she paints other things, she has become quite famous for her jelly doughnuts, which she has been painting for over twenty years.

These doughnuts are sensual; oozing vibrantly seductive jelly which seemingly begs to be touched and licked. These are sexual doughnuts with their gaping maws, opening to reveal the moist inner secrets of desire. Her paintings are hyper-realistic in their size, but a form of food porn that exudes sexual innuendo.