Sugar Crush: The Colour Blast Photo World Of Stephanie Gonot

I’m late to the Stephanie Gonot party as usual but darn it look at this hilariousness. I can seriously feel the toenail in my mouth, parsing it out with my tongue through gobs of thick oil-based whipped icing. Her Insult Cakes project with Max Siedentopf gave me such a chuckle – upending our forever-sweet memories of cake with a sociopathic icing scrawl of an unexpected message. The photos remind me of garish 1980s food photography (the kind you would find hanging in cheap frames on the walls of a 24 hour pancake diner). Cakes are ubiquitous with celebrations and special occasions, childhood dreams and slices of heaven. I’ve always loved the plasticky, brightly coloured hastily-piped frosting creations of the supermarket bakeries. I love how the Insult Cakes series grosses us out while still remaining appealing, childlike, hopeful and sad at the same time.

The heart shaped cake that says I Love You in a very different way?? Makes me think of dogs. Perfect dog birthday cake. Yes I clenched my butt cheeks when I saw this picture.

This Dairy Queen-esque beauty reminds me of the Raymond Carver story in his Cathedral collection – the disgruntled baker whose birthday cake goes uncollected for terrible reasons unknown to him… Also “You Are Average” goes against today’s parenting culture of ultra-coddling, raising our kids by saying everything they do is “AMAZING” and super special…

The serial killer scrawl of Penisface on this otherwise churchly looking, ultra white sheet cake! The images are violently bright, hard to look at for too long – patterns against our eyes. The greasy slickness of those piped green leaves – it’s almost like my tongue has been coated in shortening-based bright green icing!

I like the contrast of dream dessert vs totally-can’t-eat – prickly dink cacti mixed with pastel rainbow sherbet and a melty grotesque mountain of bubblegum ice cream. Sad/ouch/pain!

Big old pile of junk fooooood! My teeth ache looking at this. Suddenly I am craving french fries to offset the sugar.

This is so Grace Jones meets sandwich meat … The lunchbox sandwich deconstructed … the opposite of a foodie sandwich of crusty bread, cured meats and micro greens, laid flat splat against 1980s teal green, flash photography showing its shiny synthetic flavours. For more of Stephanie’s bizarrely brightly appealing work, visit stephaniegonot.com or check out her Instagram! Photog nerds will like this interview on Photo District News, too.