In Picnic, Arden Surdam explores the variable value of food in society, informed by her Turkish heritage and New York City upbringing. An animal part considered delectable in one century might become repugnant in the next. It’s a fluctuating system of likes and dislikes that has become a focal point of the past year of her practice, and relevant in a time when our relationship to the ideas & realities about American abundance are in flux.

Biological processes that look licentious in Surdam’s photographs take on a mathematic sensuality in her sculptural work. Pictured here is “Donut Tank,” (2019), a sculpture getting its color from hundreds of thousands of tiny algae living inside of it. The thin, transparent ring shape ensures that the algae experience similar rates of photosynthesis, and the work’s color changes brilliantly as the aquatic plants eat, breathe, and live.

Inspired by the canonical images of Soutine, Bacon, and Chardin, Surdam experiments with the aesthetics of biological processes within the tradition of nature morte compositions and food styling in 70s-era American international cookbooks. Like her predecessors, she gives a certain dignity to materials in varying stages of decay with her intuitive, thoughtful staging. But here, the process of finding, assembling, combining, and conserving these materials yields so many unknowns as to create a complex relationship between compositional sensuality and the sensory experience of the rapidly-evolving sights and scents of natural matter.

Surdam received her BA in Environmental Studies & Visual Arts at Oberlin College and her MFA from California Institute of the Arts. She has presented solo exhibitions at Offal EAST in Montauk, New York; ABXY, New York, NY; Galveston Artist Residency, Galveston, Texas; College of the Canyons, Santa Clarita, CA; SLOAN Projects, Los Angeles, CA; The Situation Room, Los Angeles, CA; Photo Basel, Switzerland.

She has presented in group exhibitions at The Institute for Art & Olfaction, Los Angeles, CA; Lucie Foundation, Los Angeles, CA; Arturo Bandini, Los Angeles, CA; Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA; SLOAN Projects, Los Angeles, CA; Photo LA, 25th Annual International Photographic Exposition, Los Angeles, CA; Studio Cooking in collaboration with Meghan Gordon, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA; UCLA Wight Biennial, Los Angeles, CA