Architect Red Hong Yi Plays with Her Food and Cooks Up Delicious Art (PHOTOS)

It began as a goofy Instagram project. Malaysian artist and architect Red Hong Yi went on a month-long mission, creating a piece of edible art every day. The result is an incredible visual feast.

She started the project to challenge her creativity, constraining her canvas to the confines of a plate and limiting her palette to food.  It was also a switch-up from her usual artworks which she felt were getting too big and too complicated.

“This was supposed to be something fun and non-serious,” she blogged, “I had to force myself to do something
each day even if my ideas tank was empty (happened a lot)!”

The results are astounding.  Unlike most of us, this woman never stood in front of an open fridge, a thought bubble filled with baffled question marks looming over her head, “What can I make with this stuff?”.

And clearly her mother never warned her not to play with her food.

She took inspiration from some old masters such as Hokusai’s The Great Wave (realized in boiled rice) and Edvard Munch’s The Scream (played out in sliced peppers).

She cut carrots and radishes for her tiger, and carved a cream filling dog show from Oreo cookies.

Her inner architect emerges in her urban landscapes, especially in the Kuala Lumpur skyline comprised of anchovies, baked beans, and a boiled egg.

She plans to continue using ordinary and overlooked objects to make beautiful art and, through her art and the internet, connect people throughout the world.

I admit, this has nothing to do with the Middle East and I’d have to stretch like warm mozzarella to make an environmental connection. But this is so damned cheerful, and it’s the start of a new year, and why not pay it forward?

She says, “I hope this inspires you to see fun and joy in even ordinary things you come across.”

Appreciating the every day make make us less wasteful (like TetraPak’s initiative), more imaginative, and increasingly protective of the basic ingredients in our lives.  Prerequisite skills for all Green Prophets: let’s take that on as our credo for 2014.

Images from Red Hong Yi’s website