Indulging all five senses this food and wine season
From March 21 to 30, Melbourne will host the annual Food & Wine Festival, a smorgasbord of events set to transform the city into a culinary adventure. As collectors know, art makes a great dinner party guest. It is a feast for the eye – a phenomena that, like the perfect epicurious experience, can enliven all five senses.
The sense most associated with art, vision can be literal and metaphoric. It speaks to distinctiveness and sight, two ideas that unite in Sylvia Ken’s magnificent ‘Seven Sisters’. Deceptively intricate, this work is the same subject as Ken’s Wynne Prize winning painting.
In his work, mid-century abstractionist Robert Jacks explores sound through image. Whether classical, jazz or the cacophony of a busy city, he was inspired by auditory rhythms, working to create compositions that echoed sound.
Robert Jacks 'Harmonic Ratios'
Representing touch is Ji Chen’s sumptuous ‘Untitled (Point Break)’. A master of impasto painting, Chen’s work is almost three-dimensional in its application. Plummy globs of paint evoke the jut of cliffs and smears of white recall the froth of a wave, with each element uniting to create a tactile experience.
Ji Chen 'Untitled (Point Break)'
The sense of smell lives in the materiality and subjects of art. Thickly applied paint conjures the aromas of the artist’s studio while images of bouquets recall the fragrance of flowers. Arch Cuthbertston’s ‘Untitled (Gestures in Crimson)’ evokes both sensations, immersing the viewer in a field of colour and texture.
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Last is taste. A matter of style and palette, taste is subjective but powerful. It is the smack of Auguste Blackman’s oysters, a chic minimalist work at the beach house and complex composition that the eye is compelled to savour.
