Cerealism: The Photography of Ernie
Button
Through
September 14, 2008
Photographs by Ernie Button
appear in the Heffernon gallery
of West
Valley Art Museum beginning May
30. At a glance the works seem
to be
normal photos of desert
landscapes, landmarks and
pyramids. Up close
it’s a different story. It is
breakfast cereal. And therein
lies a tale that
Ernie himself tells:
“Art is
shaped by a person’s life
experiences and I am no
different. I
was raised by a single mother,
during most of my single-digit
years, that
struggled to keep her family and
young children together. We
didn’t
have a lot of money so it was
the small things that made a
lasting
impression on me as a child.
Those times were difficult on
both her and
us: powdered milk instead of
real milk, free lunch program
instead of
lunch money, two jobs instead of
one to make ends meet. Something
like cereal was a luxury item. A
brand name cereal was more of a
rarity
as they were consistently more
expensive. Something like King
Vitamin
(a popular 70’s cereal) or Cap’n
Crunch made for pure breakfast
heaven.
So, there
sat King Vitamin next to a new
version of Cap’n Crunch,
Choco Donuts, on a recent trip
to the grocery store. Looking at
the rest
of the cereal aisle, it is clear
that breakfast cereal has
changed. The
cereal aisle has become a
cornucopia of colors with
marshmallows that
resemble people and objects and
characters from movies. Many of
the
cereals are vibrantly colored or
made to resemble people and
objects as
if they are calling out to have
their portraits taken, to be the
center of
attention. However, on the other
side of the aisle sits the more
'adult'
cereals (i.e. fiber or bran).
Having lived in Arizona for over
30 years,
those cereals upon close
inspection resemble some of the
shapes and
textures of the desert
southwest. I began to construct
landscapes that
would utilize the natural earth
tones of these cereals. I placed
enlarged
photographs of actual Arizona
skies (e.g. sunsets or monsoon
clouds) in the background of the
cereal landscapes giving the
final image an odd
sense of ‘reality’. It quickly
became apparent that cereal is
not just for
breakfast anymore. Cereal has
evolved into pop culture objects
instead of
just corn pops.”
