‘Chashu and Eggs on Ramen’

‘Chashu and Eggs on Ramen’, 2024

Claudine of  Claudine Castro Studio

Acrylic, Acrylic Gel on Canvas – 14″ diameter

This whole piece is a blend between sculpture and painting – you can feel the ripples of the ramen on the canvas’s background. The eggs pop off the canvas, floating on top of the ramen waves. The slices of chashu (pork) are floating in a pattern beside the eggs.

While I was in my trip to Japan in January 2024, I noticed that the Japanese took so much pride in their craft, from their technology down to how they prepared their food. Everything had uniform shape; you can tell that they took their time to carve out the meat and carefully place the noodles in the broth.

I realized that food is an art – the bowl is the canvas and the paint and sculptures are the pieces of food. Everything is in perfect composition.

Claudine is Filipina American living in Orange County, CA who, for over 27 years, has been creating pieces ranging from live sketches to acrylic paintings on canvas. She always felt compelled to create, from a toddler drawing on walls in her home in Manila, to an adult, painting murals in Costa Rica.

As her work as an artist evolved over the years, Claudine realized that art can come in different forms and is not limited to technical, rigid practices that she learned in formal education. The pressure of creating art in traditional forms slowly dissipated. Claudine found that creating intuitive, minimalistic paintings from nature & passersby is enough to convey joy and gratitude for the simple things!