Artist Statement

When Food is Also a God features the work of ceramicist Zoë Wyner and painter/printmaker Rachel Rizzo. The title When Food is Also a God was taken from informational signage at the Valcamonica petroglyphs, the site of over 300,000 figures and symbols carved into rock dating as far back as the 8th millennium BC. Rizzo had the opportunity to visit this site during the first of a series of three artist residencies in Italy between August 2022 and May 2023. Seeing the petroglyphs helped her create a throughline of symbols and imagery in this work, starting with the first known artistic interventions in the Italian landscape. Over the course of these residencies, Rizzo culled imagery from the landscape, architecture, local craft traditions related to fishing practices and religious iconography that is scattered throughout Italy. Additionally, she integrated references to the imagery found in scopa cards (an Italian card game with which she was familiar) throughout the series. During the second residency in Umbria, Rizzo was researching the Italian tradition of Stregheria (witchcraft) and found that scopa cards can also be used for divination. The discovery of a collection of scopa cards that had been left behind as reference materials at the site of the residency prompted Rizzo to integrate the imagery with the cards’ divinatory properties in mind.

Rizzo and Wyner have worked alongside one another in the past; When Food is Also a God prompted direct collaboration via use of shared imagery. In her work, Wyner merges traditional methods with contemporary technique, inviting the viewer to reexamine their preconceptions of fine art versus craft. She chose to approach this collaboration by expanding the language of her practice by incorporating shapes and colors drawn from those within Rizzo’s works. Wyner aims to amplify said shapes in Rizzo’s works by giving them additional dimension, creating a dialogue between the 2D and 3D forms.