Ambrosia Salad (2012)

 

Ambrosia Salad was a collaborative multimedia installation piece Lester did with artist Julia Prudhomme in the Fall of 2012. It was shown at the Alternator Gallery for Contemporary Art in Kelowna, BC. The piece was a reflection on conventional gender roles that explored the darker undercurrents that sometimes lurk beneath the surface. For this show, Prudhomme and Lester explored the example (which is surprisingly prevalent in Kelowna) of a married man cheating on his wife with other men. They collected usernames from the gay hookup site Manhunt from Julia’s hometown and wrote them on the insides of underwear which they installed on the gallery wall. They did fifty pairs and some of them were hand-embroidered by Julia herself. In the center of the gallery was a mannequin dressed in a night gown and an old fashioned hair dryer connected to a TV playing vintage gay porn. They also placed marshmallows, one of the key ingredients for the retro dessert Ambrosia Salad, in the corner of the gallery and a video projection that Julia had made of various vintage patterns animated the entire installation.