THE ART OF PLATESCAPE

Still life has always been one of the art world's most enduring forms. Now a group of Australian artists are transforming the genre with their visions of food, wine and good times

- HANNAH-ROSE YEE

Gabrielle Penfold has a great job. For her most recent exhibition Oyster Oyster, staged at Noosa's CLO Studios in that bit of 2021 that wasn't a total disaster - February - she created a whole wall of paintings dedicated to everything that you can pull out of the ocean and turn into a meal. "I went into this deep dive of eating and sourcing all these different fish... Every fish I painted, I had a story behind," Penfold recalls; barramundi, mackerel, garfish. "I feel like I'm very lucky in my profession. I never feel guilty about having a good time because it's research!"

Vibrant still lifes by Gemma Leslie and Emma Gale.

Artwork by Gabrielle Penfold.

Food is a subject that Penfold "will never get tired of" artistically. "I love the romance and the beauty of cooking."

Penfold is just one of a buffet - a smorgasbord - of Australian artists reinvigorating the still life with new energy. The 28-year-old's visions of meals, usually involving some form of seafood, a handful of lemons and the promise of sunshine, adorn Sydney restaurants including Margaret and Dear Sainte Éloise. Penfold's first exhibition was titled Lunch and Dinner; her second was the aforementioned ode to that briny, bivalve mollusc. Food is a subject that Penfold "will never get tired of" artistically, she says. And personally? "Obviously, I'm a huge foodie," she notes. "I love the romance and the beauty of cooking." It makes perfect sense to channel that love onto the canvas.