Yvonne Todd

The Arts House Trust
Located in Pah Homestead
72 Hillsborough Road,
Hillsborough, Auckland

22 January - 22 March 2026
Opening: Thursday, 22 January, 5:30 - 7:30PM

Diary of a Carrot is a food-themed exhibition blending a range of media into an absurdist commentary on the act of eating.

This exhibition presents the 'Yvonne Todd take on food – oddball, disturbing, humorous, visually rich, metaphoric, and connecting with a range of sources and references from the artist’s personal archive. The works trace Todd’s long-standing fascination with food as both subject and symbol, where every bite recalls a moment, a mood, or a misadventure, inviting viewers to chew on the strange ways we connect through what we consume.

Todd’s visual interest in food was shaped as a child by the 1960s cookbook, Cookery in Colour, a household staple that her mother owned but never used. The food depicted was overly fussy, with lurid saturated photographs of opaque savoury mousses and things submerged in aspic, and piped scrolls of mayonnaise as the preferred garnish. The recipes spoke of suburban aspiration, of “entertaining” and people-pleasing with elaborate creations that required extensive time and technical skill. Cookery in Colour was one of Todd’s first experiences with staged photography and it left a lasting impression.

In Todd’s new AI generated series, Sullen 1880s Nibblers (2025), an array of unenthusiastic Victorian women mindlessly probe and poke at the dainty plates of food they hold on to their laps. Their movements are small and habitual; the act of eating becomes emptied of pleasure and transformed into a performance of restraint, an obligation rather than a desire. Within the historic grandeur of the Pah Homestead, their distracted prodding becomes a quiet form of resistance—a refusal to consume fully, to satisfy expectation, or to disappear politely into the background. Todd’s knowledge of staged photography informs her use of AI, allowing her to extend and develop the tropes of portraiture that she has been invested in throughout her career. Food is an expansive yet deeply personal subject; everyone has strongly held views, traditions and preferences around what they eat (and don’t eat). Diary of a Carrot speaks to Todd’s interest in skewing the familiar, as well as the uncanny, and the absurd — all through the lens of food.