[From the Community Collection, a public trust in Agincourt, Iowa]

LEBEAU, Guillaume [contemporary]

“Kitchen”

ca2015

acrylic on paper / 4.4 inches by 7.2 inches

Local artists and restaurants have joined forces to raise funds for the regional food pantry, Feed the Need. Their collaboration will yield an illustrated cookbook, a collection of recipes from favored local chefs with illustrations solicited from a wide range of artists. “Kitchen” was contributed by Guillaume Lebeau, friend of Rosemary Plička, chef at The Periodic Table.

For a book type associated with the joyous topic of food, LeBeau’s “Kitchen” is remarkably sober, a dimly lit and distorted perspective of an empty room — the antithesis of family and friends gathered for that most social of human activities, the enjoyment of a meal and its preparation. This would be more appropriate in the opening credits for an episode of “Twilight Zone”.