Decorated with rosy-pink floral accents and draped buttercream piping, a cake can be a symbol of celebration. In Laurie Simmons’s Walking Cake II, the dessert is placed onto a pair of feminine doll legs in smooth tights and high heels, not only anthropomorphizing the dessert, but also modifying the archetypal female body into an edible, objectifiable character.

With no visible human head or torso, the cake-doll is understood primarily through the viewer’s perceptions of how she might taste—thus she exists to satisfy the desires of others. Thinking about consuming cake might lead viewers to reflect on how we “consume” women’s bodies and align female identity with models of societal beauty standards.

The cabbages in this print by Eduardo Paolozzi—part of his portfolio General Dynamic F.U.N.— have been overlaid with fancy cabbage salads, garnished with vegetable flowers and ribbons, imitations of the scarves, belts, and hair accessories of mid-20th-century women’s fashion. The muzak of the title, Mumbling and Munching to Muzak, refers to a banal music genre, with mumbling and munching similarly being mundane rituals. Paolozzi, who was Scottish, appears to be satirizing American middle-class culture.

The images of these decorated vegetables provide a playful response to the neatly accessorized midcentury fashions seen along the lower portion of the artwork. The juxtaposition equates the “fashionable” female bodies to cabbages that have been turned into coleslaw salads, perhaps suggesting that it is the woman’s responsibility to make herself and her meals as appetizing as possible, and ready for consumption.

Joey Terrill’s A Bigger Piece features part of a presumably male figure’s head, torso, and right flexed arm alongside a still life with objects that represent his life as a queer Mexican American. The artist places an HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medication alongside a traditional Mexican striped blanket, reflecting his intersectional identity.

The PrEP pill is placed in the center of the composition alongside watermelon and pie, items that might be more commonly found in an average household. How does this placement challenge perceptions of normalcy regarding the medication? What awareness is created for the ways HIV/AIDS impacts the artist’s daily life and the lives of his community?

Pop and conceptual artist Jonathan Seliger’s Grove transforms the likeness of ephemeral food packaging into a long-lasting artwork. Based on an ordinary orange juice carton, Seliger’s print evokes nostalgia for the breakfast beverage staple. Particularly familiar to Stewart’s Shops customers in upstate New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts, its design can be recognized from our habitual use and disposal. In both appreciating the imagery as art and in identifying it as familiar, viewers are reminded of how food, though fleeting in our daily lives, can leave a lasting imprint.

Seliger’s dismantling of the orange carton into a two-dimensional composition expands the amount of surface area on which the repetitive orange motif is depicted. What effect does this repetition have on how you view the imagery? How can these reflections lead us to rethink our relationship as consumers with the thing being consumed?

Corita Kent’s print peache bread foregrounds the Catholic belief that Jesus Christ manifests in the form of the Eucharist—bread (called the host) and wine. Combining the spellings of peach and peace in the print’s title, Kent evokes the familiar fruit’s sweet flavor with the harsh realities of poverty and calls upon Catholic values to aid those in need and to spread peace.

The large text enhances the role of the otherwise diminutive food items, suggesting viewers use bread as a vehicle to nutritionally and spiritually nourish underprivileged people. The artist also includes smaller inscriptions relating to hunger, inviting viewers to look closely and reflect on the universal need for food. Kent uses quotes from the diary of Brazilian memoirist Carolina Maria de Jesus, a children’s book by Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jimenez, and Lyndon B. Johnson’s State of the Union address from 1964. Regardless of their background, each of these authors describes scarcity, survival, and the communal need for savory satisfaction.

Adapted from Wonder Bread packaging design, Corita Kent uses circular designs and bold text to transform the ordinary grocery-store imagery into an emblem of hope for abundance for people who experience food insecurity.

The circular patterns not only recall the Wonder Bread logo, but also mimic the shape of Eucharist wafers, which Catholics believe transubstantiate, or become the body of Christ, for consumption during Mass. The phrase “enriched bread” refers to vitamin-added bread developed during World War II, when demand led to more production of processed food that would still be nutrient-rich. Juxtaposing enriched bread as a means for health and enlightenment highlights the interconnectedness of our everyday spiritual and physical needs.

The title references a Bible verse in which Jesus is quoted as promising his followers a bountiful and full life. What constitutes “fulfillment” in a consumer-based society where many are denied basic needs? What role does religion play in living a life of satisfaction?