Interview: Abbi Kenny, Beyond the Still Life

Hudson Valley-based artist Abbi Kenny works within one tradition of art history: the painted still life. Since the Dutch Golden Age, artists have used food to explore themes of abundance, death and the passage of time, and Kenny’s approach to this subject similarly transcends mere texts. Diagnosed with celiac disease in 2021, he developed a deep, personal connection to food—not just for sustenance but as a cultural artefact that carries history and meaning. “We lived near the St. Lawrence market, and as I was shopping, I realized it was really good,” she told the Observer. Inspired to paint his hauls in the market, food became a lens through which he could express his memory, culture and personality. His condition made it difficult to participate in certain rituals, and that feeling of being left out increased his awareness of the importance of food in culture and history, prompting him to explore it in his artistic work. Food, as he puts it, can be a vessel for great ideas.

Over time, her art—exhibited at the Morgan Lehman Gallery in New York City, Collar Works in Troy, New York, and the RISD Museum in Providence, among other places—has moved from sophisticated explorations of food and memory to expansive and dynamic investigations into the connections between culture, context, and personal history. Her process is a complex combination of personal history and technical experimentation—often, she uses her family’s recipes as a starting point. The act of drawing not just the dishes but the recipe cards themselves allowed Kenny to connect with his grandmother’s memory. As she drew, she found herself describing hidden aspects of her grandmother’s life and personality, discovering a deeper side of her that she hadn’t fully understood before. The worn, often faded paper on which the recipes were written—sometimes accompanied by coffee stains or handwritten notes from family members—adds layers of meaning, revealing not just the recipes themselves but the person behind them.

What began as a focus on family cooking has expanded into a broader exploration of the forces that shape those recipes, the cultural histories embedded in them and how they connect people across generations. Those curious to see his work in person can visit his upcoming solo presentation at Main Projects in Richmond opening on June 4, or catch his work in a group show at the Morgan Lehman Gallery opening the following week on June 11. Not long ago, we caught up with Kenny to ask about memory, making paint and what recipe can reveal about life.

You test recipes as part of your process, and you may make a recipe several times before painting it. Why?

I have a few different ways of finding or creating my reference images. I have all my grandmother’s recipes, many of them handwritten, so I’ve been working on them and painting them. In some cases, instead of directly drawing a recipe, I will freeze the food and create a still life, photographing it multiple times and combining the images in Photoshop to create a composition that reflects the idea I want to highlight. In this way, I can show the relationship between things. I’m actually working on a new idea based on my grandmother’s Italian recipes. I will cook a red sauce that my mother taught me and one of my grandmother’s recipes. We’re going to set up a scene with his stuff and some weird stuff I found on eBay, and I’m going to photograph it before creating the painting.

What about drawing the recipes themselves? That’s something I’ve never seen before.

I started drawing recipes shortly after my grandmother passed away. He was an important person in my life, and when he became successful, I had all these recipes, and I didn’t know what to do with them. I wanted to do something with them, so I started painting them. It felt like a way to describe him, to see a side of him that I didn’t often see, and I could almost touch his hand as I drew each word. I can paint them at a different scale than the original recipe, which distorts them. It was an interesting way to get to know him better, and it gave me peace. I also discovered that many of the recipes were written on old paper, like emails to sisters or printed articles. It was interesting to see what he was looking at then. Some recipes had coffee stains or other signs of life on them, and I would paint both sides to capture that feeling. It’s my way of soaking up someone else’s experience and bringing it to life through my own making.

He creates pigs and paints. Can you tell me more about that?

I do a lot of my own paints. I use a system where I mix pigments, either in dispersion or as dry pigment, with an acrylic binder. This gives me more control over the texture and finish of my paints. I can make them very glossy, matte, or really saturated, depending on what I need in the painting. I also teach materials and techniques, allowing me to share this process with others. It’s interesting because it allows me to step out of the box and explore different things that I don’t normally use in my paintings. I also make oil paint, but I don’t use it in my work. However, I like to teach my students how to do it because it gives them a deeper understanding of what goes into the things they use.

He is also an instructor of painting and drawing at Purchase College, SUNY. How do your students react when you introduce drawing in your classes?

Some students get really excited when they see how much they need to get into. Last semester, one student really embraced it, and it was amazing to see his habit grow. Some find it boring, but walk away with a better appreciation for the materials and the history behind them. They begin to see how much care goes into creating paint and how much history lies behind something we take for granted. It’s rewarding to see them be happy and goofy, just having fun in the process.

How do you feel your work has improved over time?

I think that when I first started, I was a bit superficial about it, not fully understanding what I was being drawn to, but I knew there was something there. Over time, I’ve become more focused on connections—looking at how things fit together. For a while, I painted in trios, like comparing the same recipe in different sources. One might be grandma’s handwritten recipe, another from a Betty Crocker card and a third from a cookbook. I can create these pieces together. I’ve been playing around with collage and putting together those little things that drew me to recipes in the first place. Now, I’m thinking in extremes, not just about food, but about context.

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