Exhibit puts pictures of pictures on the table

“What’s For Dinner?”

Diana Shearwood

Silver Eye Center for…

“What’s For Dinner?”

Diana Shearwood

Silver Eye Center for Photography

Runs through Nov. 24

1015 East Carson St.

Pittsburgh, PA 15203

412-431-1810

One look at Diana Shearwood’s photograph, “Decadent Chocolate Chip,” an inkjet print of a devilishly inviting cookie, and viewers might think that her focus is on food photography alone.

But in another section of her exhibit, “What’s for Dinner?” at Silver Eye Center for Photography, we see that “Decadent Chocolate Chip” is in fact an enlarged detail of a cookie advertisement on the side of a commercial truck.

All of the images in the Quebec photographer’s “What’s for Dinner?” focus on the ubiquitous, embellished food advertisements on commercial truck trailers.

Through Shearwood’s work, the fixation on appealing food images in our culture becomes startlingly apparent.

When we see these ads on the road, the advertisers’ aim is to conjure up ideas of savory, fresh nourishment.

The fact is, though, that the food inside these trucks is often transported for thousands of miles before it reaches the grocery store.

Shearwood’s work seems to condemn the way food is marketed, mass-produced and transported, but she is quick to point out that her photographs are more documentary than anything else.

At a talk for the show’s opening at Silver Eye, Shearwood emphasized that her photographs stem from an interest in capturing the world around her.

“To me, these photographs are observations of a phenomenon that’s in the world,” Shearwood said. “I don’t deny that the pictures raise certain issues about advertising’s role in the environment, but I don’t think I have an answer for them.”

Shearwood’s pictures of these 18-wheelers achieve diversity through the framing of each truck. Some are viewed from a distance and reveal the surroundings of the truck. This often serves as a further comment on the appetite-inducing photos within Shearwood’s photos.

But these ads aren’t just an American phenomenon. Shearwood started her project in Canada, and over the course of four years of work, she’s traveled from North America to France, England, China and Morocco.

Perhaps the collection’s most striking image is “Steak,” featuring an 18-wheeler with a juicy steak painted on the side. Behind the truck, the American flag flutters in a clear, blue sky.

On the other end of the spectrum are Shearwood’s photographs of close-up food ads that could easily be confused with pictures of the food products themselves.

In these images it is often only a door handle or the bottom runners of a trailer that let the viewer know that it’s actually a picture of a picture.

Shearwood referred to this reveal through small detail as “de-familiarizing the familiar.”

In other words, by framing her subject in such a way, she is able to, in the first instance, evoke the same response the images on the trucks aim to trigger. But on a closer look, the realization that the image we are looking at is a picture of a picture forces us to examine our original response to the image.

This is why Shearwood is unsympathetic to critics of her work who denounce her for taking pictures of pictures.

“Someone was really offended I was taking photos of photos,” Shearwood said. “But to me that’s missing the point.”

It’s only through this meta-photography that we are able to question what we see constantly in out everyday lives.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of “What’s for Dinner?” is Shearwood’s ability to shoot the ads that splash across these trucks without revealing her opinion on them.

In the end, viewers will come away with different reactions. It’s truly possible for one person to walk away from the exhibit with a sick stomach, while another might head to the grocery store, anxiously asking, “What’s for dinner?”