Food is Art
Bianca Valle’s Lower East Side studio is instantly uplifting. The floors and walls are bright white, she has two large windows that allow natural light to take over the space, her colorful art punctuates the minimal room with life and celebration, and her mini trampoline is too cute to remain unmentioned.
The artist, model, and holistic nutritionist has an equally light presence—and wastes no time getting to the meat of conversations.
Bianca Valle’s Lower East Side studio is instantly uplifting. The floors and walls are bright white, she has two large windows that allow natural light to take over the space, her colorful art punctuates the minimal room with life and celebration, and her mini trampoline is too cute to remain unmentioned.
The artist, model, and holistic nutritionist has an equally light presence—and wastes no time getting to the meat of conversations.
Food is Art
Bianca Valle’s Lower East Side studio is instantly uplifting. The floors and walls are bright white, she has two large windows that allow natural light to take over the space, her colorful art punctuates the minimal room with life and celebration, and her mini trampoline is too cute to remain unmentioned.
The artist, model, and holistic nutritionist has an equally light presence—and wastes no time getting to the meat of conversations.
“When I graduated, I got a job at Nylon magazine as a Beauty Editor. I received an influx of followers because when you’re an editor, everyone wants to know what you’re up to. When I got laid off about 4 years ago, I thought ‘Okay I don’t want to work at something that is only half-fulfilling, I wanna do things that feel complete.’ So I sat down and wrote a list of things that lit me up and made me feel full. Honestly, at the top of the list was food. It’s what keeps us alive, it can make us happy, it can make us sad. Growing up in a Mexican household, food was everything.”
Most if not all of the paintings in Bianca's studio center around food and she considers this a testament of her growth, “I think food is beautiful and food is art. When I was younger I wouldn’t paint food, I would just paint whatever I felt like painting. But I think now that I respect food so much and have this, like, incredibly healthy relationship with it, I see these paintings as celebrations.”
Most if not all of the paintings in Bianca's studio center around food and she considers this a testament of her growth, “I think food is beautiful and food is art. When I was younger I wouldn’t paint food, I would just paint whatever I felt like painting. But I think now that I respect food so much and have this, like, incredibly healthy relationship with it, I see these paintings as celebrations.” On the use of color in her minimally saturated pieces, Bianca mentioned she goes off of intuition.
“I guess, I just use my gut. I mean it sounds so out there, but when I’m painting I just look at my palette and go ‘Okay! We’re going into the red now!’ It’s kind of meditative, you know? I feel like I’m in a trance and then everything just kind of happens.”
Because she uses her modeling career to sustain her nutritional services and artwork, Bianca has the liberty of painting just because it’s creatively nourishing. “Modeling just sort of happened, but it’s actually so beautiful because it's my little contribution towards changing something that impacted me so harshly when I was younger. I see it in sort of a Robin Hood light. I obviously paint and sell my paintings, but I don’t paint to sell. I paint because it keeps me kind of centered. And If I wasn’t modeling, I wouldn’t be able to have such affordable prices in my nutrition practice.”
When she completed her health training 3 years ago, Bianca presented an idea for her final project that would eventually become a part of her practice today, a hotline
“I purchased this teeny pink old iPhone, opened up a line, put the number out, and basically said: ‘Whoever wants to call, you can call me and we can talk about nutrition.’”
Her hotline is donation-based and anyone can call for a 15 minute chat with Bianca to, as she warmly put it, “chitty-chat about food”. What we love about this initiative is that it removes any financial barrier for those who need nutritional advice the most. “At first, it started in that format so I could get practice but then I realized: oh my goodness, so many people don’t have the right facts. So I thought, who would I be to gatekeep basic health information?”
As Bianca’s site mentions, “I truly feel like my mission in life is to help anyone, like me, find what is best for them to feel good.”
To keep up with Bianca’s work, check out her website www.biancavalle.com or follow her on IG at @vbiancav.
These images were shot by Elena Mudd, @elenamudd.