Spectacular sugar rosaries gilded with leaf and scented with champagne designed for a Versace party, caves of black crystals revealed during the launch of a collaboration between Riccardo Tisci and Nike, jewelry crowned with chewable strawberries for the opening of the new Tory Burch store, in Los Angeles… With his half-punk, half-fairytale caramel installations and his brand of sweets Sweet Saba, the artist Maayan Zilberman deploys a sweet universe devoid of any sentimentality which is thrilling the world of fashion besides -Atlantic.
Although edible, his pieces are all unique works. “I’m not a food artist,” she warns us straight away. The New Yorker does not find herself in this movement born in the 1960s and which exploded with social networks, even if she herself is very active online – his Instagram account has nearly eighty thousand subscribers. “I’m not interested in playing with food. I don’t particularly like to eat, I don’t cook and I don’t bring anyone together for a meal. My practice is rooted in solitude. »
Moreover, his workshop in Dumbo, Brooklyn, looks more like a chemist’s laboratory than a kitchen equipped to perform culinary feats. An impeccable work surface, specimens arranged methodically under plastic in transparent boxes or on steel trays: sort of sugar trinkets in the shape of ultra-realistic fruits, insects, flowers, hybrid animals, etc. ‘Fashion Accessories…
On a counter, near a window with a view of the Empire State Building, his equipment consists of a small induction hotplate, a saucepan, a few tongs, a blowtorch. “To work, I need next to nothing, it’s almost like making pasta. There is only one recipe to master”, supports this atypical queen of sweets who learned the basics of confectionery on YouTube a little over ten years ago. “I watched endless tutorials of mothers preparing colorful jellies for birthday snacks. But I had more sophisticated shapes in mind. »
At the time, Maayan Zilberman had been a lingerie designer for over fifteen years. “I found myself working in fashion by chance. I studied ceramics at Alfred University in upstate New York, then fine arts at Parsons in New York, I was destined to be an artist. But I knew a lot of stylists and one of them offered to design a line of underwear. she explains. What started as an adventure ended up becoming his full-time job.
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