Blue is a shade that rarely finds a berth for itself on the spectrum of ‘food colours’. Sure, we have the now-faddish blue pea flower — known multifariously as Asian pigeon wings or aparajita in India — imparting its cobalt blue hue to everything from dim sum to cocktails, but that’s pretty much it for the eye-soothing colour.
Yet, blue in its most vivid and evocative iteration of indigo finds itself as the axis around which Eeshaan Kashyap’s ongoing Mumbai food art show, Artist Proof, pivots. It sees the New Delhi-based chef and curator embrace his artistic and performative side, experimenting with 22 different materials, including clay, metal, wood, semi-precious stones and paper. Moulding some of them into tableware, these are presented in the form of his much-fêted foodscapes atop indigo blue-dipped bricks.
“The past few years have seen the emergence of the multi-hyphenate, and the acceptability, or inclusiveness, of a more fluid definition of what constitutes art and design. I think Eeshaan is very much a product of this era — where you don’t have to think in silos but can proudly combine different forms of self-expression — food, art, design,” says Maithili Ahluwalia, founder of the lifestyle store Bungalow 8 that has now morphed into The STANDS, which plays host to Artist Proof. “Also, the explosion of a visual narrative culture makes the presentation of food as important as the food itself.”
