This Williamsburger has an arty appetite.
A new multimedia art exhibit opening at Park Slope’s Open Source Gallery on Nov. 8 features videos and portraits of its creator being covered in junk food. The works explore cravings, compulsion, and consumerism, and will hopefully prompt viewers to question omnipresent advertising and their own role in overindulgence, the artist said.
“Am I a victim or am I sort of doing it to myself?” said Sofia Szamosi, who lives in Williamsburg. “It is supposed to be a little uncomfortable.”
The show, titled “Eat Me,” also looks at the way advertisements exploit sexuality to market junk food, said Szamosi, who shot the self-portraits while laying on her kitchen floor as her husband squirted syrup and whipped cream on her face and smothered her in potato chips and rainbow sprinkles.
“It is definitely referencing this sort of imagery that we’re bombarded with — junk food and food porn,” she said. “There is obviously a huge focus on self-image and self-representation and the selfie.”
“Eat Me” is Szamosi’s first solo exhibition. In the pieces, she wears heavy makeup — dark eyeliner, bright lipstick — and she is bare from the waist up. In one work, her chest is obscured only by chocolate-chip cookies. Szamosi said styling herself in this way made her evaluate her own self-image.
“I’m sort of playing with this thing with desire and food and how it is almost similar to sexual desire and obsession,” she said. “I definitely am someone who is self-conscious — not necessarily embarrassed, but extremely conscious of myself and my body image.”
But though Szamosi said she felt vulnerable while shooting, she also found the process very therapeutic.
“There was something necessary about getting naked and sort of facing myself and my body and the food,” she said.
“Eat Me” opening reception at Open Source Gallery [306 17th St. near Sixth Avenue in Park Slope, (646) 279–3969, www.open-source-gallery.org]. Nov. 8 at 7 pm. Free. Show runs through Dec. 1.
