In the glossy, hyper-saturated photographs of Stephanie Gonot, the food, the objects, and even the people are shiny and souped-up — practically plasticine. The neon-bright colors are made more intense and the subject matter more jarring and strange by the flash-lighting that is characteristic of her work. A series at Coachella commissioned by Modern Farmer depicted people dispensing ketchup onto fast food, the surrounding spillage of condiments a grotesque red and yellow battlefield.
All of us have been taught not to play with our food, but Gonot tells us differently. Her food still-lifes, in which candy, fruit, and vegetables are arranged meticulously on colorful backdrops as an assemblage of patterns, hues, and forms have garnered commissions from the likes of Refinery29, Nasty Gal, Target, Nylon, Wired, Vice, and Chambord. “At the end of the day I’m mostly playing with color and shapes. Maybe I’m just a failed painter, and photography is my way of painting.”
The Esprit de Corps series explores the creative camaraderie and communion of Adi Goodrich, Sean Pecknold, Eric Johnson, Graham Keegan, and Stephanie Gonot. Despite the multiple degrees of separation that urban living in Los Angeles seems to enforce, they have found what might be most rare and desired in any city: the sense of belonging to a community.
