UIC Gallery 400 40th anniversary

Roni Packer describes this work as: “On my very first Thanksgiving dinner in the U.S., all I could notice were the hues of the food. The combination of the Naples yellow mashed potatoes with the grayish gravy and the soft pink turkey troubled my thoughts. The image of the non-edible colors brought with it a nostalgic wave to the strong red and the deep warm yellow of my family Friday dinner’s plates. In Pleasing (a series of five plates) I took my first attempt to work with a ‘non-edible’ palette; a distinct color scheme that is remote from my place of birth. Yet, the dull pastel palette was infected by my color consciousness, no matter how much I tried, the subdued yellow of the mashed potatoes converted to a bright-vivid one.”

Roni Packer (b. 1982) was born and raised in Tel Aviv. She completed a BFA and a BA in philosophy before moving to the United States in 2014. Packer received her MFA from The University of Illinois-Chicago in 2017 and was a BOLT resident at the Chicago Artists Coalition in the following year. In 2020 she returned to Tel Aviv where she is based now.