Sugary sweet cereal, cupcakes preserved to last a lifetime; junk food. It’s the taste of America. It’s what we eat. It’s who we are. The insatiable American appetite is set on a path of consumption. Devouring to the point where we are left with nothing, nothing but the consequential garbage. Quintessentially American, junk food is not just part of our diet, it epitomizes our cultural ideals and social norms. Through my work, I strive to invoke reflection on a culture focused on mass-consumption and mass-production, where the negative aspects of overindulgence are often forgotten or ignored. The work questions a culture that equates fulfillment, pleasure, and happiness with what we consume.

The heightened realism of these paintings serves to remind viewers that this is a mirror to our culture. The work examines the conflict between enjoying the highly processed, artificially flavored bounty of American life and the progression to overindulgence and gluttonous excess. Empty wrappers, forgotten and abandoned in a world of nothingness, question the sustainability of our excesses.