It tastes like home...
2023
Polyurethane resin, polymer paint, varnish, polymer clay, ceramic dishes, snail shell, plastic bread tags, cicada, fly, moth, bark, peg, leaves, gecko
60 x 60 cm approx.

Commissioned by Boroondara Arts as part of the ‘DISH’ exhibition at Town Hall Gallery 7th February - 27th April 2024

Image credit: Installation view of ‘DISH’ at Town Hall Gallery, February 2024. Photography by Christian Capurro. 


The cabbage moths in my garden. The splash of bird shit on my windscreen. The quick snack of sakatas and cheese when I come home from work, before I walk the dog. The sun bleached peg and some dried up weeds I pulled out from the backyard. The mid-week dinner of steamed dumplings from the freezer. The bread tags that gather on my kitchen bench and sometimes fall on the floor. The fucking flies everywhere. All these things taste like home.




Making sense of nonsense
Installation view, Stockroom Kyneton, Melbourne.
22nd October - 27th November 2022

Trying to make sense of the chaotic nature of the last few years, Laetitia depicts her experiences in a cheerfully nihilistic way. Aestheticising hyper-real forms to convey emotions and memories, Making sense of nonsense is almost a painting show, not quite a sculpture show.

Carefully painted ‘hyper-surreal’ resin sculptures are laid out like constructivist paintings among a vivid, energetic blue. Lunch leftovers become abstract collages and detailed sculptures double as whimsical candelabras. Each life-like scene is intently placed as a tactile translation of memory.

Food is the defining feature of this exhibition, as a joyful comfort, as helpful procrastination, and as a reminder of loved ones. Fleshy oysters ooze their ‘bougie’ picnic opulence. An impassive brick of minced meat stresses the appreciation of boredom.

All timely reminders that life is just a bit nonsense.

 
Bite Size is a series of hyper surreal magnets in bite-size form by visual artist Laetitia Olivier-Gargano. Each magnet is individually cast and hand painted in her studio in Melbourne.

Four styles of mini sculpture magnets have been produced in limited edition runs for ProtoSHOP.
These include: Potato Smiley, Dead Fly Canapé, Musk Stick Worm and Cheezel Finger.

Photography by Christina Mishell, ProtoSHOP for Brand X.

https://www.brandx.org.au/shop




SPLAT PACKS 
Notfair 2021
20th - 30th May

SPLAT PACK #1 (2020 meal set), 2020
Ceramic, polyurethane resin, polymer paint, wood, chewing gum

SPLAT PACK #2 (my insides), 2021
Ceramic, polyurethane resin, polymer paint

SPLAT PACK #3 (771 bus route), 2021
Ceramic, polyurethane resin, polymer paint, bus ticket, cigarette butt

SPLAT PACK #4 (Italian snack pack), 2021
Ceramic, polyurethane resin, polymer paint, polymer clay, toothpick, knife

SPLAT PACK #5 (dagashi), 2021
Ceramic, polyurethane resin, polymer paint, paddle pop stick, dagashi

SPLAT PACK #6 (futile snack), 2021
Ceramic, polyurethane resin, polymer paint, chopsticks, gouache tube, dagashi

SPLAT PACK #7 (after school snack), 2021
Ceramic, polyurethane resin, polymer paint, silicone, polymer clay, rubber stamp, nuttelex packet, mee goreng packet

SPLAT PACK #8 (eggs), 2021
Ceramic, polyurethane resin, polymer paint, resin, polymer clay, quail egg, crayons

SPLAT PACK #9 (toast and tea for breakfast before picking the caterpillars off my plants), 2021
Ceramic, polyurethane resin, polymer paint, polymer clay, soil, gouache tubes, tea bag, dead fly, fork





Sometimes when I feel empty, I eat a second breakfast. 
Installation view, Firstdraft, Sydney. Photos by Sarah Kukathas, Document Photography.
5th May - 13th June 2021
https://firstdraft.org.au/program/sometimes-when-i-feel-empty-i-eat-a-second-breakfast

Sometimes when I feel empty, I eat a second breakfast. is a sculptural response to the everyday. In 2019, Laetitia Olivier-Gargano undertook a research trip to Japan to learn how their iconic fake food displays are made – since then, she has been creating “hyper-surrealistic” resin cast sculptures combining food, plants and an odd sense of storytelling. Delicately painted plastic forms look good enough to eat, but utterly uncanny in their presentation. This visual feast playfully incites both a sense of wonder and unease. Using organic shapes, flora and everyday objects to draw on emotions and memories, her incredibly intricate sculptures explore mixed cultures and identities as well as sharing the wonderful, the awful and the often hilarious combinations that can arise when we play with our food.

This project was assisted by The Freedman Foundation Travelling Scholarship for Emerging Artists, administered by the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA). This project is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.