Cut Food: Beth Galton

The creative spark for the Cut Food series came by way of a commercial assignment. I was asked by the client to cut a burrito in half and photograph the cross section. At first, I thought it would be unappealing, but in the process became curious about the insides of food, and their hidden landscapes. Cross sections are not new–a cake half eaten shows its interior. When applied to food items which are unexpected yet commonplace, even well recognizable within our food vocabulary, we move past the simple appetite appeal we normally try to achieve and explore the interior worlds of these products. 

In collaboration with the food stylists, we chose subjects which we felt were iconic symbols within our food culture; classic items that many of us grew up eating. As we shot each subject, I felt that some images worked better in pairs such as the soup cans and the pints of ice cream. Shown together they create a stronger statement about their symbolic nature.

After testing various options, I found that placing these subjects against a black background with a singular hard light helps focus the viewer on the hard reality of each interior. There is a magical quality harkening back to magicians with rabbits coming out of black hats. My premise was to create imagery which looks as if it is magically happening but as real as possible. Our approach is very low-tech using gelatin, glue, Crisco, scissors, and saws while fabricating each object. When necessary, some compositing was utilized but my background is capturing everything in-camera on a single sheet of film. I wanted these images to look this way.

–Beth Galton, Artist

It is important to mention the collaborators involved in these images. Without them, these images would not exist.

Food stylists: Charlotte Omnès and Michelle Gatton

Retouchers: Daniel Hurlburt and Ashlee Gray

Curatorial Statement

Depending on who we are and where we are from, we think about food differently. Nutritional scientists have a very specific definition of food: “Food is matter (building materials)–one of the basic necessities of life–containing nutrients (energy) living things can use to live and grow. All living things need both the matter and energy in food to grow, to heal wounds, and to keep all their parts working.” Food choices, however, are not always about satisfying the hunger pangs that enable us to survive. They can also be an unconscious and complex dance between our brain chemistry, our hormones, our emotional state on any given day, our cultural and social heritage, our mother’s Sunday beef Wellington, our father’s Saturday night spaghetti surprise, our grandmother’s strawberry rhubarb pie, our uncle’s expertise on the grill–all those memories and smells that trigger our salvatory glands.   

Artists give us a very different way of understanding food. Photographer Beth Galton works with food stylists to show us a playful new way to look at the food we eat. Her images aren’t the pictures you’ll find in your favorite cookbook although they are just as seductive. Gooey dripping warm chocolate poured over cold ice cream, the multi-colored parfait sprinkles raining down over luscious full-fat whipped cream, with a cherry on top? Or not; think about what’s in that so-called coagulated butter dripping thickly into your popcorn. Mind your squishy pale green peas and overcooked orange carrots? What?? Are those really potatoes? Do I put that stuff in my body? Maybe I could go fishing with those noodles? What about all that Styrofoam used to package “prepared” food?

Beth Galton’s imagery fits nicely into the tradition of food photography that’s not about the food per say–Edward Weston’s peppers, Paul Caponigro’s apples as well as Harold Edgerton’s images of apples and milk drops, Irving Penn’s frozen foods, Jo Ann Callis’ lovely still lifes with fruit, and Stephen Shores nostalgic dinner tables. These photographers changed and continue to change the way we think about food and what it may inspire.  

-Mary Anne Redding, Senior Curator

Website: https://bethgalton.com/ and https://www.bethgaltonfineart.com/

Facebook: Beth Galton Photography

Instagram: @bethgaltonstudio