The magic
Fried eggs with French fries served on a silver platter. A good portion of Butter . vermouth with anchovy gilts . Danish cookies dipped in coffee with milk . Bread with chocolate . These almost daily delicacies are also the delicious illustrations who try to do one thing above all others: make food a divine act , And it is the Valencian artist Silvia Tack she is the one who achieves them by drawing tempting and everyday still lifes where everything revolves around one table . Nothing fancy, just what they contain by themselves.
"I think we are surrounded by free luxuries and that sometimes we overlook them. That's why I try to capture them, so that I don't forget them in case they ever disappear. They are a kind of fan art", tells us the Valencian whose biography on Instagram is already a declaration of intent with a phrase that says: Wine table, bread town, mountain of honey, custard egg.
Food is more than present in her work, a passion that was born as a result of her her work as a designer . "She designed wine labels and menus for restaurants and cafes. When I began to immerse myself a little more in that whole world, I discovered that it was full of pure free luxury . Things that I think in a few years will be worth millions because they are disappearing," he tells us. "I love discovering people who have neither Suns nor Stars, but who believe in what they do and know the origin of what surrounds them," he explains. .
A thought that becomes clearer when she tells us her gastronomic preferences : exuberantly simple and absolutely delicious. Like the plate that she likes least is the one that is empty; who has half a liter of breakfast filtered coffee with toast, one good homemade butter and jam . "Sometimes also grated tomato, camembert cheese and lots of pepper", she continues as she starts to make our stomach growl. The last restaurant that fascinated you? " the outbreak . I went for the first time just before the pandemic and I can't get it out of my head. Is it so specialized in mushrooms but my favorite dish was very well seasoned and juicy chickweed".
wine o clock
the style of the illustrated food de Tack is recognizable not only for its theme but also for its organic stroke . "I think this was my escape from my years working as a graphic designer, I needed to do the opposite of exactness, perfect shapes and geometries," she says. "I also usually use a restricted color palette , I think that a good economy of resources in the image can help more to count and to compose. Color gives a lot of information and in general I think I'm drawn to the ones closest to nature," she continues.
Are you looking to tell a story through food or do you simply portray it?, we asked. "I always try to tell something, it excites me more a table after eating than before. When things have happened, when there is action there is nothing perfect or set for the photo. When we eat we stain ourselves and there is disorder: if it doesn't mess up it doesn't have fun ", he launches at us in response. As in La Magia, one of his favorite illustrations, in which a boiled egg, its dripping yolk and a piece of bread sinking to the bottom.
26 grains
"It represents me a lot in general, it's almost my art statement, it's everything I aspire to in life. That there is bread and that it can be wet ", he jokes." I know it's breakfast for many people but for me it's also dinner for many busy days in which the body asks me to close with something simple and easy. I don't need nitrogen or caviar to enjoy at a table; I am happy with little and this illustration symbolizes it".
Another member of his portfolio that he has special affection for is Engagement Grapes, which he made just after a Trip to Japan –Where he discovered one of the places where he has eaten the best, Standing Sushi Bar , in Tokyo–following the Japanese view of the fruit. "I found it incredible that fruit is treated there almost like a jewel banished from nature and its little bugs."
Silvia studied Fine Arts in Valencia and, from the beginning, she was fascinated by all the techniques of engraving and drawing . "But it was really the year that I was exchange in bratislava when I discovered illustration, especially publishing. My head exploded knowing all the tradition that exists in Eastern Europe around her and her way of working with her books", she tells us.
Her inspiration comes from food and she feeds on self taught art , form narrative and channeling to express their emotions. "Self-taught artists (especially from the pre-internet era), in general, try to represent reality in a mimetic way – read Lee Godie, Aloise Corbaz, Susan Te Kahurangi King – but in the end they put a lot of their opinion and their way of seeing the world, despite not having formal training... and this fascinates me", says Tack excitedly.
engagement grapes
The lockdown was also very present in his illustrations and social networks, managing to overcome the excess of monotony that usually threatens any creative impulse . "I've tried to take it with humor, cook with fire... The wine – right now her favorites are the Micaela cut stick from Bodegas Barón, Maeve from Rodriguez Morán's Microbodega and Alice Bouvot's El Cariboum– and the croissants have saved a bit."
The future holds experimentation with animation your short-term goal. But also a few well thrown canes in La Colmada or Canned Nudist ("a sure success," he tells us), in Madrid. Or maybe a return to San Sebastián, to the Gerald's Bar , his favourite. Or to Valencia, where he never lets down an arròs to the senyoret in Farmhouse of the Font d'En Corts or the fideuà rations to take away from Rausell . Luxuries as tasty and accessible as these, yes, upside down. And characters that extol her value as much as Silvia Tack, well, too.
The illustrator Silvia Tack