Ripley’s Believe It or Not! London hosts pop-up exhibition of artwork by ‘foodscape’ artist

“Stop playing with your food” is a familiar phrase heard around family dinner tables across the country, but that is exactly what ‘foodscape’ artist Carl Warner does for a living. This festive season, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! London is hosting a special pop-up exhibition of Warner’s delicious-looking landscapes created using foodstuffs as well as a bespoke Christmas-themed commission.

Visitors to Ripley’s Believe It or Not! between 30 November 2013 and 8 January 2014 can view a selection of Warner’s captivating ‘foodscape’ photography which includes everything from cottages built out of candy to seas of smoked salmon and cabbages. View the ‘London Skyline’ as you’ve never seen it before, iconic landmarks such as St. Paul’s Cathedral, The London Eye and Tower Bridge made from fruit and veg. Cocoa lovers will also enjoy the ‘Chocolate Express’, an old fashioned steam train rumbling through a mountain range created entirely from chocolatey treats.

Exclusively for visitors to central London’s most bizarre attraction this Christmas, Warner is creating ‘Crockerville’, a festive village scene made from over 2,000 cookies, chocolate rocky road and has taken over three weeks to complete. The model will take pride of place in the exhibition surrounded by a range of Warner’s other iconic foodie works.

Carl Warner will also be meeting visitors to the exhibition and hosting question and answer session about his work at the attraction on 30 November between 2pm and 4pm to inspire ‘wannabe’ ‘foodscape’ artists and sign copies of his latest book.

Visitors to the Carl Warner Foodscapes pop-up exhibition can also enjoy exploring the rest of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! London which boasts more than 700 wonderfully weird exhibits including a portrait of Kate Middleton made from lipstick kisses, a life-sized, hand-knitted Ferrari and authentic Amazonian shrunken heads.

Ripley's Believe It or Not! London is open seven days a week, 365 days a year from 10am until 12 midnight. Visit www.ripleyslondon.com for further information.

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About Ripley’s Believe It or Not! London:

With more than 700 amazing artefacts on display over six floors, the attraction celebrates the weird, wonderful and bizarre in all its forms. With everything you can imagine (and plenty more you can’t), Ripley’s Believe It or Not! London is a family day out that’s definitely out of the ordinary. For additional information call +44 (0)20 3238 0022 or visit www.ripleyslondon.com. Like Ripley’s Believe It or Not! London on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/RipleysLondon

About Carl Warner:

Carl Warner was born in Liverpool, England in 1963. At the age of seven he moved to Kent with his parents and as an only child spent hours in his bedroom listening to music, drawing and creating worlds from his imagination, inspired by the posters on his walls by artists such as Salvador Dali and Patrick Woodroofe and the record sleeve designs of Roger Dean and the work of Hipgnosis.

Carl began his career by going to Maidstone College of Art with a view to becoming an illustrator as he had a good talent for drawing, but he quickly discovered that his ideas and creative eye was better suited to photography as he saw it as a faster and more exciting medium in which to work. After a year’s foundation course at the college he moved to the London College of Printing in 1982 to do a three year degree course in photography, film and television.

Having become a successful advertising photographer from the mid to late 80′s through to the mid-nineties he found that his work was becoming less in demand as well as unfulfilling creatively. He was searching for a something new and different to do with his talent that would not only rekindle his interest in photography but inject some life into his flagging business. Inspiration seemed hard to find, but one day while walking around a food market he found some wonderful portabello mushrooms which he thought looked like some kind of tree from an alien world. So he took them back to his studio with a few other ingredients such as rice seeds and beans with a view to try and create a miniature scene on a table top.

The Mushroom Savanna became his first “Foodscape” and over the next ten years he continued to develop a body of work making landscapes out of food, and this began to attract the advertising industry once again who began commissioning him for advertising campaigns for various food based products and brands.

The ‘Foodscapes’ are created in Carl’s London studio where they are built on top of a large purpose built triangular table top. The scenes are photographed in layers from foreground to background and sky as the process is very time consuming and so the food quickly wilts under the lights. Each element is then put together in post-production to achieve the final image.

Media Enquires and high res images:

Siren Communications: Stacey Stockwell (Stacey.stockwell@sirencomms.com), Kate O’Brien (Kate.obrien@sirencomms.com)  or Lauren Mayle (Lauren.mayle@sirencomms.com) on 020 7759 1150