Frozen Food Faces: Meet the artist pushing the material boundaries of sculpture and portraiture

Lying on a bed of ice, Morenike Caxton-Martin’s ‘Ketchup’ encapsulates textural playfulness. The work, a self-portrait constructed using a mould of the artist’s own face, is a frozen sculpture made entirely from the material suggested in its namesake: Ketchup. Suspended in ice to prolong its display ‘shelf-life’, the work, now long melted away, exists solely as a set of images documenting its disintegration. Her work is colourful, experimental and visceral, and at 23, she has already been a visual artist for 6 years. We sat down in a bar in Soho to talk through her inspirations and delve into her uniquely ephemeral practices. Nigerian-born, Morenike now lives in London and is currently studying an MA in Arts and Science at Central Saint Martins. She was recently nominated for the MullenLowe Global 2024 Nova Awards.

Q. What inspired you to start using food as a medium?

A. I have always been material-led. When I was a kid, my mum used to buy me science kits to make my own perfumes. I loved the idea of just treating it like a mini experiment and I always tried to see how far it could go. Personally, I believe in God, and part of that is I believe nothing is really impossible. So, I applied that to my practice and tried to use materials that wouldn’t seem to work together, like jam and resin or soap, and watch what would happen and record it. In the same way that we don’t know what’s in 80% of the ocean, we don’t know the capability of certain materials until you push them beyond what people have already tried. It also, to be honest, came from boredom as well, because I just kept seeing people making simple resin casts and I felt like that wasn’t pushing the boundaries. Food, and fruit specifically, I started using during my art foundation. We had a group project that was to make a fruit holder which I chose to actually make out of fruit instead and then it kind of went from there. I honestly love fruit just as a food, and I have these vivid memories of going to the market as a child, seeing the produce lined up and loving all the colours. It's like the vibrancy, the texture, how malleable fruit is, the shells and the way both humans and animals eat fruit, all drew me to use it as a medium and inspired my practice.

Q. Your work is so distinct because of its ephemerality, why make pieces that at some point will no longer exist?

A. My work definitely challenges the permanence of the artworks themselves. A lot of the materials I use are foodstuff - they are all perishable and will inevitably decay. Freezing the materials is a mode of preservation until they are ready to display, but obviously, as soon as they come out to room temperature, they will begin to melt and no longer physically exist. That in itself is a kind of performance, and by photographing this process, I am capturing the works at a specific moment in time. It’s like a playful experiment across the past, the present and the future - a kind of exploration of childlike futures that in the end becomes permanently rooted in the past and cannot be separated from its transitory state.

Q.  Your work transitioned into being almost exclusively self-portraiture, why is that?

A. I started out working with fruit as objects in isolation. With no explicit human interaction, more like using animated poses or adding certain human characteristics to them - mostly to make them more relatable and entertaining for an audience. I started exclusively working on self-portraiture in 2020. Although I definitely feel like my work has always had aspects of self, self-portraiture specifically felt like a more effective way to express life’s emotions and create a clearer visual link to my cultural identity.  I wanted to use my identifiable features, my lips, my nose etc. to explore the complexities of finding my own path while preserving a physical and emotional proximity to my home in Lagos, and to express myself in a way that tests the limits of what portraiture actually is. 

Q. More recently you have been experimenting with 3D and UV printing, what inspired you to start working with these mediums?

A. My original self-portraits were made using traditional mould-making techniques which were effective result-wise, but very time-consuming. You need to make several different casting layers using alginate and plaster and then make a shell, all before you even use the mould. It becomes your life. With 3D printing, I wasn't limited by size and scale. I started scanning my face with different materials and simply watch how the program would respond. It was like a research experiment. Sometimes, too, there are glitches which I can exaggerate when I UV print. UV printing involves flattening and then the machine emits ink backwards and forwards to complete a full image of whatever you scan. Using technology to combine different printing methods with tangible matter creates super interesting compositions because they interact in ways I couldn't have produced alone. I can control the poses and choose the materials, but ultimately the program will determine the results.

Q. You graduate this year, what’s next for you?

A. I'm not quite sure. I am not sure I want to necessarily aim to be a full-time artist (in the traditional sense) straight out of finishing uni. I have a lot of different interests and I think I want to explore other things creatively. My goal in life is not to have one single job: I feel like I’m bound to do many things and I don’t want to constrict myself. I want the possibility to be able to be anything at any given point in time.

By Emily Bennett
emilyvictoriabennett@gmail.com
@evbes