Amaury Guichon is the Assistant Executive Pastry Chef at Jean Philippe Patisserie in Las Vegas. He began training in Switzerland and by the age of 21 became one of the youngest executive pastry chefs in Paris. He is widely known because of his use of social media. He uploads many pictures and videos to his Instagram and Facebook accounts and has garnered the attention of many netizens.
Guichon has made many gorgeous pieces with his specialty, chocolate. He helped to create a huge Halloween-themed display that included more than 45 show pieces that took over 8 months to complete. These pieces were create through collaboration, hard work, and skill.
On his Instagram account he posts many pictures of gorgeous creations including the viral chocolate straws and Christmas tree cakes.
He is incredibly creative with his works, but he has the basic baking building blocks. Like Stravinsky and jazz music he learned the basic foundations and strengthened his skills before he tried the amazing creations he is known for today. Many people don't realize that pastries are a form of art and science. Each creation is founded in very strict and scientific rules. Baking is a very precise art where if the basic principles are not followed the pastries will not be appealing. Pastries are bound by certain laws and stipulations but one can be creative by how they are manipulated. The textures that are placed together, the flavor profiles, the colors, the image they are trying to create. Pastry artists create their own works, but they are built on the basics and inspired by things around them such as the large showcase aforementioned which was inspired by the show The Walking Dead. or this next picture and time or watches. Sometimes creativity is not by changing the rules, but by rearranging them to create something beautiful and new.
Sources
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F7B_4f0DiQhttp://finance.yahoo.com/news/jean-philippe-patisserie-displays-frighteningly-160000956.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7wol5EmrCQ
https://www.instagram.com/amauryguichon/?hl=en
As a food fanatic myself, I love the topic of choice. I think it's great that you highlight food creators as artists because I don't think many people see them that way. Creating specialty dishes or elaborate designs like those of Guichon are a special kind of art and a product that takes a unique kind of creativity. It's amazing how someone can turn something so simple like pastries into something so visually appealing. The ability of Guichon to take something we eat everyday and make it so realistic and so detailed I think shows the creative capacity he has. There's nothing better than food that looks great, but tastes great too. And that's what Guichon has done with his masterpieces. Why use paper and wood to make art when you can use food?!
ReplyDeletethank you! i know that food network does a lot of baking competitions and all of them are art pieces. A lot of people see food network stars and realize the creative process but because it's on television and they have to hype the looks i think some people forget that it is creativity that anyone can use. but guichon has more of an online presence which is where people don't seem to really notice the creativity as much. There is a niche of bakers and cooks on youtube and instagram that are showing off amazing skills that would usually be unnoticed. I think that social media is giving artists of any platform a voice and it doesn't have to be something spectacular like this but maybe accomplishing a difficult recipe or making a simple cake look amazing. And a lot of people don't realize that a ton of creativity is needed to create amazing dishes. It might seem like a plain pastry but their is science and imagination working in harmony to create the piece.
DeleteAs a person who loves to bake, I admire the complexity and detail he puts in to every single one of his desserts. They are all so visually stunning and I would have never guessed that they were pastries. Baking is not easy, so being able to work with a defined set of baking rules in order to create something so intricate emphasizes that creativity is all about pushing the boundaries in order to create something unique.
ReplyDeleteI agree i love baking as well and I see instagram posts and food network competitions and I just get so inspired to create. It is absolutely amazing the basic knowledge and rules needed for a piece to come out right and I think it's really amazing that food is becoming noticed as an art form.
DeleteMy mom is a baker and loves all things dessert, so I can definitely appreciate this. I've seen not only the successes and beautiful creations, but also the failures. I can only imagine the number of not-so-beautiful creations that he had to muscle through in order to gain the skill necessary to create such amazing pieces. I think a lot of people sometimes forget that not everything is super perfect every time. You have to learn from your mistakes and move on and just keep being creative!
ReplyDeleteI found it very interesting that you mention Guichon as an artist and a scientist. It has been much more obvious that baking is an artistic domain from the various baking shows on Food Network, but the domain of baking is certainly based in science as well. Baking is restricted by scientific rules of creation due to the variety of flavors and forms. My Picasso group is currently working on our group project that analyzes the scientific nature of both Picasso and Theo Jansen, who created various wind propelled kinetic sculptures made out of wood and PVC pipes. Certainly, Guichon used his background in cooking and baking to revolutionize the domain of baking similar to how Theo used his background in painting and physics to create his creates, "Strandebeests."
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