As she approached her 30th birthday, Jasmine Dillavou rubbed cake on her legs as if it were shaving cream. Then, she grabbed a razor and methodically shaved it off.
At another avant-garde performance, Dillavou donned red lipstick and smushed her face against an unfurling roll of parchment paper, all while reciting poetry. The end product was a bloody hieroglyphic, a translation of the poem into a new visual language.
“Girl Dinner”
Where: Auric Gallery, 125 E. Boulder St.
When: Through Friday, Aug. 29
Pop-Up Dinner: Aug. 24 (SOLD OUT)
Artist Talk: Aug. 27
Website: auricgallery.com
At her most recent show, “The Dead Still Eat,” Dillavou sliced fresh fruit and poured glasses of wine for incorporeal guests, but neglected to set a place at the table for herself.
Food and femininity have always inspired Dillavou’s artistic practice, so when the term “girl dinner” caught on on TikTok in 2023, she knew that it would be her muse.
“Girl dinner” was coined to describe a hodge-podge snack plate eaten in place of a meal. Dillavou describes “girl dinner” as, “Something that’s small, that’s comprised of things that are easy, that don’t make a mess, that we only do in [private].”
If the memes are to be believed, a contrasting “boy dinner” might consist of rotisserie chicken, a block of cheddar cheese and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s to wash it down.
Dillavou’s visual art exhibit “Girl Dinner” was created to explore the complexities of such gendered language.
In lieu of paint or pastels, Dillavou most commonly uses red lipstick, a nod to its significance among Latinas and its associations with so-called “wild women,” from sex workers to suffragettes.
“It goes on your mouth, the thing that speaks your ideas,” she added. “It’s like I’m putting my mouth, my voice, my presence directly into the piece.”
Dillavou uses the lipstick to fill in plastic stencils typically used for restaurant advertising, which spell out messages like “HOT,” “TASTY” and “OPEN EVERY DAY.”
For the “Last Good Bite” series — named for the societal expiration dates placed on women’s bodies — Dillavou smashed tubes of lipstick onto decorative ceramic plates, resulting in an unappetizing, fleshy meal.
Other pieces weave chrome tooth caps into wicker paper plate holders, creating the illusion that a starving person gnawed straight through them.
Collages of recipe papers are used as a backdrop for many of Dillavou’s works. Some are sourced from Puerto Rican cookbooks, while others were gifted to Dillavou by her paternal grandmother. If you look closely at the papers, you might find some chicken scratch notes and ingredient adjustments.
Adding to the grandmotherly vibe is a liberal dose of Clinique Happy perfume sprayed onto some of the works.
“When you eat food in a restaurant, really, most of your experience is coming from how it smells before you even taste it,” explained Dillavou. “When you smell the work, you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s a grandma smell.’ And not in a bad way. In this nostalgia, warming, feminine, big hug kind of way.
“I do want to bring some warmth of nostalgia into the room when we’re looking at this work,” she continued. “It’s kind of sweet and tender to think about the women before us, to think about how we’ve been fed, how we will continue to feed, who gets a seat, who doesn’t get a seat, who gave up their seat for us to ensure we were fed.”
Dillavou doesn’t cook quite as much as her grandmother did, in part because her husband, Ian Dedrickson, is a chef.
Dedrickson runs Ephemera Dinners, a restaurant offering experimental fine dining experience. The venture began as a series of artsy pop-up dinners around town.
Dillavou is carrying on the tradition with an avant-garde “girl dinner” at Auric Gallery to go with her exhibit. Taking place on Aug. 24 and seating only 20 people, the five courses include everything from edible lip gloss to a dessert inspired by the gender pay gap.
Whether you come to the dinner or only the exhibit, Dillavou hopes you come hungry.
“Hunger can be a craving, a desire. How much do we want? How much do we want to speak up for ourselves? How much do we want to be heard, to be believed, to be craved, to be desired?” Dillavou said. “Hunger comes in so many different parts of our lives, and it starts when you’re this little, tiny person in this little, tiny body. And the first time you realize that your body is not just your own — it is this thing that can be craved and consumed — is when you start feeling like a woman.”
