Chuck Ramirez
b. 1962; San Antonio, TX d. 2010; San Antonio, TX
Candy Tray: Godiva 3,, 2002 (printed 2021)
Pigmented inkjet print
While working in commercial design for the H-E-B supermarket chain, Chuck Ramirez began making photographs of familiar, everyday objects—shrink-wrapped foods, jam-packed trash bags, hospital flower arrangements—which he captured in great detail against a white void and at life-size. Candy Tray: Godiva 3 is part of a series consisting of emptied chocolate boxes. Here, Ramirez transforms a chocolate tray from an object of mass consumption tied to feelings of love into a semi-abstract surface of dips and valleys left by the absent candy that may allude to loss. Borrowing from the tools of commercial advertising to highlight the luscious and shiny golden hues of a tray reminiscent of gilded coffered ceilings, Ramirez charges the object with a sense of mortality. As the candy tray faces the end of its lifespan as a utilitarian thing, the artist invites viewers to confront the fragility of time on this earth.
