7,000 Handmade Fried Egg Sculptures by Christopher Chiappa

For his third solo show at Kate Werble Gallery, LIVESTRONG, Christopher Chiappa presents a series of 7,000 handmade fried egg sculptures exhibited as a growing infestation that invades its surroundings.

Over the past 5 years, Christopher Chiappa’s studio has been filling up with fried eggs. They surfaced initially in drawings and then as actual fried eggs, draped casually on studio surfaces, candid photos snapped. The eggs multiplied and mutated as he eventually adopted their form for hyper-realistic sculptures constructed through a carefully calibrated process of casting, pouring, sanding and painting plaster. As he refined his method, they evolved into uncannily illusionistic “sunny side up” versions of their former selves. They aggregate in his studio in various stages of completion along a series of folding tables, their plaster bases gaining yolks, contours, lightly toasted edges, and a glossy sheen as they graduate from one station to the next. Finished eggs rest – yolks shining expectantly, like so many eyes – on racks stretching from floor to ceiling, bakery-style, as their ranks methodically approach the decided goal of 7,000.