10 Food Porn Geniuses

These crafters play with their food and create stunning works of art with unexpected mediums.

By: Deanne Revel

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Photo By: Courtesy of Iven Oven

Photo By: Deanne Revel

Photo By: Courtesy of Liv Buranday

Photo By: Courtesy of Linda Miller

Photo By: Courtesy of Jessie Bearden

Photo By: Courtesy of Danielle Evans

Photo By: Courtesy of Lauren Purnell

Photo By: Courtesy of Samira Kazan

Photo By: Courtesy of Gretchen Roehrs

Photo By: Courtesy of Olga Noskova

Sugar Plants

Iven Kawi’s floral cake designs will make you double take. Her sugary botanicals look so real, from pink lotus blossoms to succulent desert scenes to summer peonies. The artisan baker does not have a shop and still works from her home in a village just outside Jakarta, Indonesia. She’s become extremely popular on Instagram with her floral designs and demand for her cakes is so high she now employs a team of 14 women bakers and pastry chefs.

Smoothie Paintings

Hazel Zakariya’s smoothie bowl paintings were actually born out of a mistake. "I first got the inspiration while I was trying to garnish my soup with coconut cream swirls. It didn't go exactly as planned at first. But then I saw the opportunity of turning it into something else, and I turned the coconut cream swirls and pesto into a tree instead." Since then she’s developed natural pigments from vegetables and superfoods to create smoothie paint for all kinds of illustrations including nature, botanicals and popular movie characters.

Coffee Art

Coffee lovers, this art is for you. Liv Buranday uses coffee and coffee grounds to paint animals, pop culture portraits and incredibly life-like vignettes. The coffee stain has a watercolor-like quality and the grounds give each piece texture and depth.

Dyed Pasta

When Linda Miller Nicholson’s son turned five, he got picky about vegetables. Nicholson developed rainbow-colored veggie pasta to hide the vegetables and it worked. "I’ve been developing new colors ever since," Nicholson said. "I puree vegetables, herbs, and superfoods with eggs from my own chickens and ducks, before adding the puree to flour to make over 25 different colors of pasta dough. Some of the ingredients I use to make colors include turmeric, beets, spirulina, spinach, nettles, harissa, paprika, butterfly pea flowers, matcha, blueberries, acai, goji berries, and cacao." Once she mastered colors, Nicholson moved on to patterns. "I treat pasta the way a fashion designer treats textiles," she said. "I regularly approach strangers, asking to take a picture of their shirt or shoes, so that I can later turn it into a pasta pattern."

Food Paint

Why use paint when you can use hot sauce, chocolate syrup and icing? Food painter Jessie Bearden finds pigments in unexpected condiments and sauces using all kinds of liquids as paint. Her life-like portraits of celebrities have thousands of likes and views on Instagram and several have been featured on MTV. "As much as I love traditional painting, it began to feel less challenging and I wanted to try something different," Bearden said. "Surprisingly, I find it refreshing to work with perishable ingredients which must be thrown away afterward. When nothing is permanent, it helps me loosen up and have more fun with my art."

Food Typography

Ever spell out words with alphabet cereal or write your name with cheese spray? Danielle Evans of Food Typography is keeping the dream alive with "a balanced breakfast of design and foodstuffs." Her beautiful, edible art spares no food, from sushi bubble letters to cursive apple peelings to humble pie with lattice work that literally spells humble.

Plate Art

Whoever said you can’t play with your food didn’t understand the plate is the perfect canvas. Lauren Purnell of Culinary Canvas plates fun, whimsical vignettes from fruits and veggies. "I call my pieces Culinary Canvases--a reference to my style of creating art on a blank, white plate (my canvas) using fresh, healthy and colourful foods," she said. Purnell loves the diversity and challenge of using food as a medium, especially leftovers and unused parts. "Since a huge part of what I do is also about repurposing scraps that would normally be thrown out (peels, pits, skins, rinds, etc.) I also love that I’m able to incorporate these items into my creations, transforming them before they're tossed out."

Pro Styling

Food blogger Samira Kazan of Alpha Foodie is a master food stylist. Her recipes are one big pastel wonderland of gorgeous smoothie bowls and perfect toast art too cute to eat. Kazan uses edible flowers and added coloring but one of the best tricks she uses to style her foods is using a melon baller on everything. Dragon fruit. Avocado. You name it. Everything looks better in tiny spheres.

Food Fashion

Artist Gretchen Roehrs takes traditional fashion illustration and adds a bit of whimsy on top by literally piling on pieces of food. "There are an array of similarities between how we interact with food and fashion — most importantly, each gives us a chance to show our creativity everyday, whether it’s creating a beautiful salad or wearing a crazy jacket," she said. These couture outfits include lettuce dresses, lemon skirts and even banana jumpsuits. "I love working with the unexpected parts of the food we interact with everyday — like banana peels!"

Marble Cakes

Russian baker Olga Noskovaa rose to internet fame for her perfectly marbled cakes. Instagram became obsessed with her galaxy patterns that are so shiny they have a sheen on top. "I get my inspiration from the world around me, from the Universe," said Noskovaa. As a pastry artist, she wants her cakes to look beautiful and taste great but she also wants her cake art to inspire just like music or other art. "I paint my paintings in my soul and render them in reality," she said.

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