The Toast Master
As unenticing as burnt toast may sound, it has certainly intrigued art buffs in galleries nationally and internationally, thanks to Maurice Bennett's pixilated 'toast portraits' and 'tapa cloth' toast designs.
Bennett's celebrity toast portraits of Dame Edna and Mona Lisa require many thousands of slices of bread and each slice is toasted according to different tones for the required skin highlights or shadow.
Bennett (aka The Toastman) first came up with the quirky idea of making art out of toast in 1998, while flicking through a magazine. After toasting lots of bread and laying it out on the carpet, Bennett says, 'my friends started making comments like 'did that idea just 'pop' into your head' and 'you'll make a lot of 'dough' out of those. It was then I knew I was onto a winning formula!'
The Toastman's work has a strong New Zealand flavour, from portraits of famous people such as Peter Jackson, to giant banners spanning the side of buildings, to a Maori and wearable art collection. His knowledge of the medium has allowed him to explore new ways of manipulating toast using a gas-fired torch, 'a flame as a paintbrush' instead of the traditional toaster.
His favourite piece to date is a work called Kaitaia Carving, which is based on a very important early New Zealand carving that links New Zealand to the Pacific. His work is visually striking. Objects such as sticks, pebbles and the odd well-placed starfish are now part of his ocular vocabulary.
'I am very proud to be a New Zealander, this consolidates my place in the world and I want my art to reflect who I am. There is too much international 'art for art's sake', that says nothing, and could be painted anywhere.'
Maurice also creates his own 'Bennett's Beer', available at many restaurants and retailers in Wellington. Bennett says he didn't have a love for beer until recently when he discovered all the different styles and varieties. 'I am a firm believer in crawl, walk, run, so I started very small, with one beer.' Bennett’s lager was awarded a gold medal in the Pilsener style class, at the 2003 Brew NZ competition in Wellington.
Bennett has recently finished a large toast image of his Bennett's beer to feature at the Brew event this year. He says the most interesting aspect was using a printing company to print the image of the label onto the slices of toast. Bennett says he can see many more possibilities for toast art along these lines.
As a result, Bennett's life is certainly never dull. Creating toast art, working in his supermarket, selling beer and managing a band, he says, 'I spend what little time is left with my partner, watching the All Blacks or reading a book.'
His toast work has been featured on 'Ripley's Believe it or Not' in the USA and his first solo exhibition was recently held in Wellington. He has also been invited to a Malaysian museum dedicated to bread.
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