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Visual Essay 15 by Chris Yuille

Journal • Visual Essay 15 by Chris Yuille

Chef and Food Stylist Chris Yuille’s jelly creations embrace form, colour, light, and the handmade. The result is evocative imagery that makes you want to touch, taste, and play. For our 15th Visual Essay, Chris and photographer Sarah Forgie celebrate the arrival of Spring in Australia, exploring the form of our Tumbler Vase and porcelain in Milk.

I was a chef before working in food styling. I’m someone trying to make things that look artistic despite not being an artist. I can’t sing, I can’t paint, I can’t sew. That intersection is the product of someone trying to enter the art world using the only skills they have.

Chris Yuille

Collaboration can be an interesting balance between vision and instinct. How do you approach working with a brand or photographer while still maintaining your own creative voice?

Being pushed by someone else's vision can be uncomfortable, but it’s usually what gets the best out of you. I’d have never made these images without Mud, or Sarah, for example. I can’t recommend collaboration enough.

Talk to us about your relationship with Sarah Forgie and what it was like working together.

Sarah is an art director as well as a photographer. She has a great command of shape and texture and her images all show great restraint. I think there’s a balance between disorder and control in this essay, which shows our combined influence. I like working with her very much.

You have a strong sense of visual rhythm in your work — from plating to light and tone. What are you loving at the moment, what is influencing your aesthetic decisions?

I like taking food that belongs in a cartoon and presenting it like it belongs in a gallery. The contrast between kitsch and classy influences everything I do.

What role does imperfection or chance play in your creative process — especially when working with such a temperamental medium like jelly?

The human touch is part of what’s great about Mud’s designs. While I usually try to make things that look austere and perfect, Sarah and I wanted to retain some imperfection to match the subject. Everything you see here is handmade.

Chance, too, is huge. It was by chance that one jelly was the exact diameter of the Mud teapot, so we just had to shoot them on top of each other. That ended up being mine and Sarah’s favourite image.

Lastly, what excites you about food styling and creative direction right now. Are there emerging ideas, materials, or techniques you’re eager to explore next?

I’m drawn to the old more than the new. I’m interested in magazines, posters and galleries. The things of highest value are still savoured slowly, again and again.

Being pushed by someone else's vision can be uncomfortable, but it’s usually what gets the best out of you. I’d have never made these images without Mud, or Sarah, for example. I can’t recommend collaboration enough.

Chris Yuille

Ingredients

10 gold gelatin leaves

10g loose chamomile tea or 4 chamomile tea bags

800g boiling water

80g honey



Method

  1. Place the gelatin leaves, one at a time, into cold water. Set aside
    until softened, approximately 5-10 minutes.
  2. Place chamomile tea into a heatproof vessel. Pour over the boiling
    water and steep for 4 minutes. Squeeze excess water from the
    softened gelatin, then add to the tea along with the honey. Stir until
    all is dissolved, then strain through a fine sieve.
  3. Pour into desired vessels and chill in the fridge for at least 6 hours,
    ideally overnight.
  4. To serve, dip moulds into hot tap water, just long enough to release
    the edges - start with 5 seconds. It will take longer if you’re using
    a Mud Australia Tumbler Vase. Use your fingertip to check that
    the edges of the jelly pull away from the mould, then invert onto a
    serving plate.
  5. Serve with shortbread and cream or atop buttered brioche toast.
    Enough to fill one Mud Australia Tumbler Vase or, if you must,
    6 dariole moulds.

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