Using a mix of media, from paintings to installations, he disperses these ingredients for what amounts to concoctions that leave viewers in question of their own culture(s). Elegant porcelain objects found by Mondini-Ruiz are placed with the greasy-looking foods we hate to love in his current show, which we recently got a chance to speak to him about.
Creative Loafing: InFried, are you attempting to address themes of consumerism and obesity through your work?
Franco Mondini-Ruiz: I think so. A lot of things. As an artist, and as someone who has gone through a journey of having a conventional lifestyle to being an artist, I kind of always am critiquing our culture. I have a love-and-hate relationship with many aspects of living in our time in history in our country. "Fried" becomes a metaphor for exploring our culture and brings to mind, of course, fried food, obesity and having too much of a good thing. Even in the time of recession, the world in itself is so wealthy compared to centuries past, and there's so much fat in the land. So, it does deal with abundance and the ramifications of abundance. But "fried" is also a metaphor for, like, you're fried because you're on drugs or you're spiritually dissatisfied. The planet is being fried because of the abuse on it. But, "fried" can be positive things, too. We come from a culture that's very diverse and very interesting. One thing people have in common is food, culture and civilization. I am going to show that with different cultural aspects of fried food, for example from Chinese egg rolls to Mexican burritos to fried chicken and Southern fried food, that will be a recurring theme. But the theme also gets larger and explores both cultural diversity, which I think is a great positive aspect of our culture, as well as the dangers of an accepted consumerist culture, which we are.
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