JonMarc Edwards American b. 1959

Fast food Vegetarian 1986

Acrylic, mixed media

Fast Food Vegetarian is a wry comment on convenience consumerism. Edwards paints a drive-through vegetarian stand – similar to the fast food or instant photo stores that populate the urban landscape – where wholesome food can be purchased in an instant. The projecting billboard announces the benefits of this food while the city’s grid identifies the various handy locations of Fast Food Vegetarian. This disquieting juxtaposition of the vegetarian stand and a fluorescent nuclear reactor, however, implies the possibility of contamination – an ironic predicament for a health food restaurant.

Like the Pop artists who, during the 1960s, borrowed from the language of commercial art, Edwards, a Minneapolis artist, is also interested in the easily identifiable signs and symbols of mass communication. In this work, commissioned by Walker Art Center, Edwards presents easily readable images in a diagrammatic format that communicates a message to the viewer in the same manner as billboards and road signs. The artist uses color successfully in this mural to convey the commercialism associated with the fast food industry. The meticulous application of saturated colors achieves a remarkable flat, deadpan look, which is then challenged by three-dimensional objects such as the picket fence.

Walker Art Center, 1986