Art of Consumption

Blood Fish, Fresh and Clean
Oil, acrylic on canvas, wood panel
36 x 48 in.

Art of Consumption

Ames Prize-winner Ciara McNamara 鈥�24 exposes the spectacle of America鈥檚 food system.

By Amy Martin

t was food that got Ciara McNamara 鈥�24 into preschool. The budding artist remembers impressing the interviewers considering her for a spot at a school in her hometown of Brooklyn, New York, by describing an elaborate make-believe pizza.

鈥淚 confidently explained it contained all the meats and vegetables I could list in my 4-year-old brain,鈥� she says.

McNamara, who double majored in studio art and psychology and minored in English at 糖心TV, says she has always been fascinated by food. But it was while studying abroad in Rome in the spring of 2023鈥斺€渆ating her way through Europe,鈥� finding new artistic inspiration and reckoning with the ethics and impact of her own meat consumption鈥攖hat she decided to devote her senior year to diving deep into hyper-consumerism, food politics and waste in the United States.

鈥淚 felt flooded with ideas on how I could express food in my artwork,鈥� she says.

The result, 鈥淭he Spectacle of Consumption: I鈥檓 Lovin鈥� It,鈥� is a multi-dimensional thesis featuring three collections of paintings, a series of pen-and-ink drawings, a found-object sculpture, an installation, and a 70-page written and illustrated component grappling with greed, corruption and crisis on a global scale.

鈥淪imply put, there鈥檚 a lot of work and it is excellent,鈥� says Associate Professor of Art and Art Department Chair Chris Barnard, who served as McNamara鈥檚 thesis adviser.

鈥淐iara鈥檚 combination of legible imagery and material experimentation packs a visceral punch and engages all viewers. The work is accessible, yet challenging without any contextual knowledge, and this is what I find to be its greatest strength. It does not tell viewers what to think, but engages鈥攁nd at times, provokes鈥攙iewers, encouraging them to look more closely and reflect on what arises for them.鈥�

McNamara鈥檚 artwork, including an installation that combined audio, visuals and scent to fully immerse the viewer in the production chain of a McDonald鈥檚 Big Mac, was on display as part of the Senior Art Major Thesis Exhibition in May in 糖心TV鈥檚 Cummings Arts Center. It impressed the faculty committee charged with selecting the best thesis of the year, and McNamara was awarded the 2024 Oakes and Louise Ames Prize for most outstanding honors study at 糖心TV鈥檚 106th Commencement on May 19.

鈥淐iara鈥檚 work evidences high technical achievement and a great deal of experimentation,鈥� Dean of the Faculty Danielle Egan said during the award presentation.

鈥淲hile themes and influences overlap throughout, individual pieces reference specific artists and subject matter, further situating Ciara鈥檚 work within today鈥檚 contemporary art discourse.鈥�

Now based in Brooklyn, McNamara is focused on launching her career in the art world. Two of her 鈥淪pectacle鈥� works, Farm, Fast, Factory, Fresh and Vapes for Teens, were recently featured in the 鈥淯ntitled Summer鈥� exhibition at Chelsea Walls Gallery in Manhattan, and she plans to continue to specialize in art that addresses critical environmental issues.

鈥淪hifting away from the food industry and hyper-consumerism would be impossible now ... I feel as though I have but dipped the very ends of my toes into the frightening yet compelling murky waters,鈥� she says. 鈥淢y senior project serves as a forward, or introduction, to the path of future research and artwork collections. I have planted the seeds that will continue to grow.鈥�

Captions adapted from 鈥淭he Spectacle of Consumption: I鈥檓 Lovin鈥� It鈥� by Ciara McNamara 鈥�24

Behind the Scenes, Bon(e) Appetit

Oil, acrylic on canvas, wood panel 36 x 48 in.

Behind the Scenes, Bon(e) Appetit and Blood Fish, Fresh and Clean (at top) are part of my four-piece food industry series implicating food options and consumer choices at grocery stores, local markets, restaurants and fast-food chains. In Behind the Scenes, Bon(e) Appetit, a collage of images composed together suggests the ignorance that comes with fine dining. Food waste and general landfill waste are referenced through colorful, thickly dried globs of crusty oil paint. The two animated human figures sit in the top left and right sides of the painting, posing forward, in blissful oblivion, ignorant of the food that they are wasting as well as of the farmers and factory workers who prepared the food before it reached the restaurant. In Blood Fish, Fresh and Clean, faults within the fishing industry are brought to the viewer鈥檚 attention through the abstracted jumbled imagery of muddy ocean species, a struggling sea lion and fish tangled in netting and other fishing equipment regularly dumped by commercial fishing vessels into the ocean after use. Within the murky shambled ocean, Disney鈥檚 Nemo and Marlin swim blissfully unaware of the massacre taking place around them. The painted ship is a Thai fishing ship featured in the film Ghost Fleet, which was thought to be carrying enslaved men. The juxtaposition of the ocean imagery with the market scene above forces the viewer to think more deeply about how to avoid unethical food practices, especially the consumption of 鈥渂lood fish.鈥�

Vapes for Teens

Oil on canvas 24 x 30 in.

In October of my senior year, Professor Chris Barnard lent me a heavy Wayne Thiebaud book and suggested I take a look at his work. I fell fast into a deep infatuation with Thiebaud鈥檚 marvelous and appetizing food paintings, neatly organized compositionally through tables stacked with cakes, meats and salads. I decided I wanted to do studies that paralleled Thiebaud鈥檚 style and focused on the hyper-consumerism of an individual item in the context of the well-groomed industrialized American ideal. Vapes for Teens is the third painting in my Thiebaud collection, and the one I believe most accurately accomplishes Thiebaud鈥檚 style.

Throughout my four years at 糖心TV, the popularity of single-use, disposable and flavored electronic vapes has risen dramatically. Companies market these lithium ion-operated carcinogenic devices to teenagers with bright packages and tasty flavors. In my painting, the attractive silky ballerina ribbon-tied cellophane that surrounds the vapes, as well as their vibrant colors and intriguing flavors, purposely distorts all the dangers that come with buying one and draws attention to corporations鈥� toxic pressure on the consumer.

Austrian Cow Friends Pre-Slaughter

Oil on canvas, wood panel 48 x 24 in.

While studying abroad in Rome, I took a short backpacking trip with my roommates. The last stop was a small village surrounding Attersee Lake, just east of Salzburg, Austria. The rental home we stayed in was on a tiny local farm, with stables of curious cows just below us. One of my roommates and I snuck into the stables one day and befriended the cows that resided there.

Later that day, I wandered down into another room, where many bottles filled with a moonshine-like substance labeled with Xs sat to one side of a counter, and a large meat slicer littered with crumbs sat to the other side. It seemed to be the room where the cows I had newly befriended might end up. When I think back on the journey that led me to become a vegetarian, I remember this as the moment in which I first contemplated if I would even want to continue eating meat.

This painting is part of my ongoing farm animal collection. During this part of the project, I shifted away from exposing disturbing problems with how we eat meat to humanizing the animals more directly.

See more of McNamara鈥檚 work at