Playing with Food

A Mississippi artist’s paintings of simple food subjects evoke sweet sentiments.

Written by Eugene Stockstill |  Photographed by Joe Worthem

Madeleine Bridges probably never walks through a kitchen and thinks she’s just looking at an old, battered jar of brown sugar with the lid half off. Probably never catches a luscious whiff of nearby peaches and forgets about it. Probably never wanders by a garden and ignores how happy a fat, fresh tomato can make you feel.

For the professional painter and former Oxford resident, a simple bowl of biscuits is a work of art. So it’s not too surprising that one of Bridges’ more striking paintings is, you guessed it, a bowl of biscuits.

“Is there anything more Southern than a biscuit? It goes with breakfast, lunch, dinner,” Bridges said.

“It’s both limitless and a little mundane. But something about painting them is so fun. Capturing the texture in something that is one tone can be tough, and yet, they come out so simple. I just love them.”

Bridges draws all sorts of inspiration from food, much like the impressionists of 19th century France. Her work, in fact, seems like a blend of realism and impressionism — an assessment with which she concurs.

“I try to capture just the essence of a scene. I think that’s another beauty of painting, you can change things up from piece to piece,” she said. “I often find myself getting so sucked into my paintings that I am more focused on the strokes and less focused on the subject. After a few hours, I step back and realize, ‘Wow, that does look like a cheeseburger.’ It’s funny how things come together on their own when you just focus on one thing at a time.”

A child of Houston, Texas, and one of four children, a young Bridges absorbed art from two primary sources. One was her mother.

“She was Pinterest and Martha Stewart before I knew them,” she said.

The other was her fifth-grade teacher in Madison, who had the whole class create their own Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“Flowers like Georgia O’Keefe’s, a goldfish scene like Monet. We laid on our backs and painted under our desks like Michelangelo,” Bridges recalled. “It was so formative.”

Fast forward to life in Oxford, where she absorbed all the local aesthetics and started painting again. A small online collection led to a few interested callers, which led to more and more, which led to her decision to become a full-time working artist.

Bridges now calls Madison home and finds a way to handle the ebbs and flows of a busy family life and still create art.

Food is one of her favorite subjects. She’s got paintings of a cup of coffee, lemon wedges, a mouthwatering cheeseburger, a blue plate full of tomatoes, a slice of strawberry cake, a slice of pecan pie, an overflowing shrimp po’boy and a stack of pancakes dripping with syrup. And as you already know, she’s into biscuits.

“I love how you don’t have to be a seasoned art collector to feel something when you see a painting of food,” she said. People often don’t realize until they see a piece that it brings up a nostalgic feeling. It’s so rewarding to see people in all walks of their art appreciation be moved by my work.”

Her paintings of oysters on the half shell have a special place in her heart.

“My husband and I have always loved oysters on dates,” she said. “We’ve been together for 17 years, and we’ve had them everywhere from Mississippi to France. In this season of life, there aren’t as many oyster dates, but they always bring happy feelings for me.”

One oyster painting is her favorite, if she’s forced to choose. “Tide for Table” features oysters on a silver plate, a family heirloom, sitting on top of patterned paper, which is rather unconventional for an oil painting, she said.

Bridges exhibits her work regularly at Caron Gallery’s Tupelo and Laurel locations, and she loves to participate in the Double Decker Arts Festival in Oxford whenever she can. She is moving into a new studio later this year, and she says she’ll likely have some work on display at Caron Gallery by the holidays. Her paintings go beyond foodstuffs, to include landscapes, pet portraits, local scenes and more.

See her work and contact her via Instagram @madbridgesart or through the Caron Gallery, thecarongallery.com.