Art: Nice and Toasty!

I love toast. I love to eat it with jelly, baconlettucetomato, maybe some butter, cream cheese...really, so long as it's not too burnt, you can eat toast in any manner that your heart (and tastebuds) desires. But, I must admit that I haven't thought of toast as anything but crispy, warm bread meant to be eaten. Enter Maurice Bennett, The Toastman.

Maurice, a Kiwi with a background in Civil Engineering, worked at a grocery store at a young age. The job appealed to him, to the point that he and his wife eventually purchased a grocery store of their own, which became very successful. However, the Island Bay New World Supermarket has since been sold as Maurice is a full-time artist. The biography on his website states: "His exhibitions of toast art works that have been inspired by Tapa Cloth, Maori Carvings, and Pacific patterns have received appreciative reviews from Art critics worldwide, with comparisons of the toast colours complimenting such traditional art forms. Today Maurice continues to push the barriers in his use of toast as an artistic medium – adding collage to his work, cut shapes from the slices of toast, and creating of three-dimensional images." Here is a video, from Maurice himself, discussing his background and artistic evolution, from the NZ show, The Gravy:

As always, click to enlarge