Katie interviews Harley Langberg about sculpting mashed potatoes and making butterfly wings from tortillas.
It’s no secret that I’m obsessed with Instagram (the first step is admitting you have a problem, LOL). I’ve met so many amazing and talented people through IG, and I wanted to share some of my favorite accounts with you all! I hope you enjoy these incredible individuals as much as I do, and as always, share with me what your favorite Instagram accounts are by dropping me a line at info@katiecouric.com.
The majority of accounts I follow on Instagram have something to do with food (sad, but true) and one of my favorite accounts is @harleysfood_art, where artist Harley Langberg turns the edible into the incredible! His work is seriously stunning: From a sushi platter made from the cream of an Oreo cookie to a lion made from leftover produce and cookie dough, his creativity knows no limits! Get to know the mastermind behind these crafty and delicious looking creations.
What inspired you to start making food art?
I fell in love with cooking at age 8 and have been cooking ever since. I’ve always had a deep appreciation for art: I grew up in NYC surrounded by amazing museums, galleries, and street art, then later took art history classes in high school and college.
While living in NYC’s Meatpacking District nine years ago, I came across a food-art photography exhibition at Chelsea Market. It was my first time ever seeing that art form, and I was totally amazed by the pieces. I realized this could be something I’d enjoy, since it combined both my passions: food and art. That night, I got some ingredients from the market and made my very first piece inspired by Banksy’s “Flower Thrower.”
I know the ingredients you use in your pieces are carefully selected — can you explain your creative process?
I always start with an image — whether it’s a picture of a celebrity, an animal, or an animated character — and then I take that image to the supermarket and try to match up the ingredients with the colors.
I love when my pieces have great textures, so I often look for ingredients that would add a lot of texture. For example, I recently used Cheetos for the Rugrats character Didi Pickles’ hair, and I once used baked tortillas to create a butterfly’s wings.
Is there a certain type of food you prefer working with?
I love working with mashed potatoes and cookie dough, since they’re so fun to sculpt, when I’m creating portraits of celebrities or animated characters. I tint them with food coloring and they serve as a great base for the face; on top of that, I add various produce elements for facial details. I also prefer to work with fruits and vegetables as often as possible, since I enjoy eating healthy and love that my toddler daughter enjoys eating fruits and vegetables, too.
What’s the strangest ingredient you’ve ever worked with?
Definitely dried anchovies, which I found at a Japanese grocery store in NYC. I ended up using them as a gray element in one of my pieces and loved the texture they added to the piece. I also enjoyed cooking and eating them — they make for a really tasty and healthy snack!
What’s been the hardest piece to create?
The toughest piece to create was one of my smallest: It was when I created a sushi platter inside an Oreo cookie, using only the Oreo cream that I dyed with food coloring. The Oreo pieces are among my most challenging food art creations since the surface area is very small. A sushi platter has such intricate detail and so many colors that it was very challenging to replicate.
Do you have a favorite piece?
I’ve had many favorites over the years, but my newest favorite piece — which I plan on printing for my apartment — is my rainbow lion. It was a lot of fun to make: I used so many different colorful produce ingredients with different textures, as well as some dyed cookie dough. The end result was very striking.
You have almost 40,000 followers — tell us about this community you’ve created through social media.
I have a really great group of followers from all over the world and a large number of them are talented fellow chefs and food artists who work in all different mediums. The food art community is not that large, and most of us know each other; a lot of us have developed our own styles and niches. There are the amazing cake and cookie artists, other talented fruit and vegetable artists, amazing pie artists, incredible pizza artists. There’s so much creativity on Instagram and I love that the platform brings us all together. I also have a large number of followers who are moms, dads, or grandparents who enjoy showing my creations to their children and grandchildren. It’s great to be able to inspire the next generation!
Can people buy your work?
You can find my work on Instagram and on Facebook. I also have a website where you can order prints of my current pieces or order a custom creation.
