On an unusually warm San Francisco night, attendees gathered at a small gallery, unsure of what to do next. In front of them was a long, draped table filled with delicate potted plants. The round leaves semi-hid small and equally round, bright buttons. Are those edible, guests wondered. Are the stems? There’s an interesting effect to food being taken out of its familiar context and put on display in imaginative ways. Amusement. Curiosity. Awe. And it’s happening more often, as food art takes center stage.
While there’s always been a place for using edible materials and centering food themes in art to make a statement—be it Kara Walker’s molasses and sugar sculptures or Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party—in its current, social media-era manifestation, food art brings together tactility, visual artistry, and culinary cache, typically within limited timeframes. (Namely, through installations, exhibitions and pop-up events.) The food is reinvented, yet accessible. The vibe and location matter just as much; think unforgettable edible sculptures at a brand launch. A unique, interactive nibbling opportunity at the best party of the year. A memorable experience at an art event. There’s still plenty of room for thought-provoking statements, storytelling and timely context, but also joyous experimentation and creative collaboration.
If any name springs to mind first, it’s probably culinary artist and Instagram darling Laila Gohar, who regularly works with food as a medium. Gohar had worked with Hermès, Byredo, and Simone Rocha, among others, infusing fashion shows and dinner parties with the drama and whimsy she’s become known for. And yet, her work, and food art as a discipline, has been predominantly the bread and butter of elevated private events and whimsical photo shoots—until now.
As fatigue from digital-first, video-heavy experiences grows, opportunities to experience food art in public spaces are coming to the forefront, led by a growing group of artists following in Gohar’s footsteps. They turn galleries into edible forests, throw multidimensional feasts, confuse audiences by mixing canapes with rocks and moss, and put food on literal pedestals of varying architectural complexity. Here, find five emerging food artists to watch.
Elena Petrossian and Verónica González, Ananas Ananas
L.A-based Elena Petrossian and Verónica González are the brains behind the creative studio Ananas Ananas. Merging backgrounds in graphic design and art direction (Petrossian) and industrial design, business, and hospitality (González), the two have been creating installations, edible sculptures, and curated dining events since 2019.
González and Petrossian often juxtapose edible components with industrial elements, like mirror-polished stainless steel, aluminum, and raw wood, creating stark and thought-provoking contrasts. “Our work sits between art, hospitality, and design and choreographs the act of eating into a ritual, a performance, or even a form of social commentary,” says Petrossian.
One such project was 1 Apple, an installation the two created back in May for Fever Dreams, a group exhibition at the Studio Underground gallery in NYC. The installation featured apple skewers positioned on rotating stainless steel vessels, available for guests to eat during the duration of the exhibition, each skewer representing a single apple created with multiple gallons of water. The installation, González says, “addresses issues around the food production chain, specifically the amount of water going to waste with our residues left unwanted.”
Other work is equally striking, if more lighthearted—case in point, descending chandeliers stacked with umeboshi sticky rice and tiered, pop-out dessert sculptures that delighted guests at the Glossier fragrance launch in 2024.
Madge Stein
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At a recent San Francisco installation, Bloom to Decay, Madge Stein’s vision was on full display—a humble warehouse transformed into a flowering garden, with a table set in the middle. On it, dark slabs of focaccia covered in black tahini, vessels filled with wild mustard and fennel salad, and soil-like dots of black olive tapenades mingled with fennel plants, looking both inviting and dubious. A collaboration of four floral and food artists, the one-day event “explored sustainability and waste within our industries,” the artist says.
Stein’s work is instantly recognizable from the way they arrange edible objects to obscure their origins. Currently occupying the “intersection of food, art, styling and experiential design,” they first cut their teeth in events and experiences by organizing events and festivals for nonprofits in the Bay Area. Gradually, their focus shifted towards catering and experimental food pop-ups that are immersive, surprisingly tactile and wrapped in layers of context. “I almost always start with the natural world—what is popping off right now at the farms, what colors are prominent in the plants around me—blooms, leaves, lichen, debris,” they say.
As with Bloom to Decay, Stein’s work is often collaborative in nature—they’re part of No Crumbs Collective, a group of East Bay artists, chefs, growers and makers that collaborate on artistically staged food imagery and turn it into calendars, prints and puzzles to raise money for nonprofits. Next up for Stein is a public event exploring the crossover of music and food. “Music always fuels my creative process,” they say.
Hanna Hurr of Figwaspe
“I named my studio after the fig wasp, whose life cycle and continual sacrifice have propagated the fig tree since ancient times,” says NYC-based culinary and horticultural artist Hanna Hurr. “It’s a process that is beautiful, but strange and visceral; exploring and celebrating earthly design and natural forces drives a lot of my vision.” In Hurr’s work, nature, and her passion for gardening, manifest in installations and conceptual experiences that speak to Hurr’s experience as a professional chef working in Michelin-starred restaurants—think transparent, meticulously arranged pâte de fruit, or dainty tartlets filled with green fava bean cream and nestled on a 12-foot long bed of edible nasturtium vines.
The latter were a part of a recent installation, Calyxes, which took place at Glass Rice gallery in San Francisco, and also featured dramatic abstract paintings by artist Marcel Rozek. For another collaborative installation in San Francisco, Petrichor, Hurr created sculptural and scented sweets that, combined with scented rocks and flower arrangements, explored the microclimates and flora of California.
Next up for Hurr is a stint as a culinary director for a weeklong event series at Tonnara di Scopello, a boutique hotel in Sicily, taking place next year. “I’m incredibly inspired by the seaside terrain and culinary history of the town,” she says. “I think it will spark plenty of inspiration.”
Hyun Jung Jun of Dream Cake Test Kitchen
For Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist Hyun Jung Jun, her otherworldly cakes and art practice are in constant dialogue. “In both, I’m interested in how food and objects can hold meaning, create shared experiences, and bring people together,” she says. With a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA in art theory and practice Northwestern University, Jun’s chosen mediums have always been a mix of painting, drawing, photography, and sound, gradually evolving into installation and performance.
Baking was added to the mix in 2019, first as an experiment, then as an extension of Jun’s artistic vision and a way to enhance gallery openings and exhibitions; the cakes she creates challenge conventions and spark conversations. When creating them, “I like to think about landscapes,” Jun says, referencing both the natural terrain literally, “but also structures, support systems, relationships, and cultural dynamics.”
Occasionally, however, food plays a deeper role. For a recent interactive piece, Jun used a pig’s head as the central subject, having two performers from different cultural backgrounds eat the head together in front of an audience. Leftovers were shared with the viewers: “I noticed that some people had tried pig head for the first time, and enjoyed it,” she says. “Food becomes a shared entry point, a way of understanding one another more easily.”
As she prepares for an upcoming cake pop-up at the East Village Slip House Gallery in 2026, Jun’s goal is to continue exploring the relationships of food and art. “Both are about material, process, and ritual—connecting care, memory, and community,” she adds.
Anna Keville Joyce
“I love that my profession requires me to continually reinvent my title,” says Keville Joyce, who splits her time between NYC and Buenos Aires. Currently, she says, it’s conceptual food artist and director—“suggestions welcome!”
Throughout her career, Keville Joyce had worked on museum exhibits, short films, experimental food experiences, and photography, enhancing her work with experiences in food styling and anthropology. In particular, she gravitates towards food ingredients as creative material, calling them “honest, unpredictable, and accomplices—if you’re willing to listen and engage on their terms.”
Recently, Keville Joyce had invited patrons to engage with food in unexpected ways at Foraged, a gallery installation in Buenos Aires recreating the forest ecosystem through video art and craft objects and inviting guests to “connect with nature and their primal instincts,” by foraging the food around them in a guided fashion.
But her practice often takes another turn, digitalizing foods or recreating them with non-edible materials—a series of pixelated food illustrations, say, or a large-format mixed media sculpture of a shokupan sandwich Keville Joyce is currently working on. “My natural approach is to create something I haven t seen or felt thus far, something I want to exist that doesn’t yet,” she says. “Usually I know an idea will ‘work’ when it feels like the resonance of a piano tuning fork. It’s visceral.”