Do Not Eat!

2022

Clay, Plastic, Acrylic Paint, Paper, and Mixed Media in Refrigerator 

28" x 63" x 24"

Our refrigerators can be unexpectedly personal, given the items inside them. I discovered this concept throughout several years of babysitting and several encounters with the food of friends, yet who in the context of their refrigerators felt like strangers. Completely normal foods, such as artichokes, a specific brand of yogurt, or leftover Greek salad felt completely alien to me. It wasn't because any of these foods or any of the other types of food I encountered in refrigerators across my town were old, or maybe spoiled or rotting—they were just different from what I was used to. In these moments I realized what we eat, how we eat it, and even how we organize what we eat can reveal an unexpected amount of information about a person. To convey these ideas, I created an entire refrigerator of food out of various materials. All of the items in Do Not Eat! have a specific hidden meaning to me, making this my refrigerator. In a way, it's a self portrait through food.