Maurice Bennett

Bennett was born on 25 April 1957 in Paeroa, New Zealand. He attended high school in Whakatane, completed a certificate in civil engineering at Auckland Technical Institute and began (but did not complete) a bachelor of architecture at Auckland University.[1] He married his wife Carolyn in 1987, having met her while working at a supermarket, and they had two daughters. Outside of his artwork, he and his wife ran a New World supermarket in Island Bay, Wellington, and (from 2004) a brewing company, and he became a fulltime artist in 2009.[1][2] He was a collector of New Zealand ceramics,[3][4] and curated an exhibition of ceramics called Tectonic Clay at a Wellington gallery in 2014.[5]

Bennett's early artwork was conventional painting, sculpture and installation art.[1] The 1998 New Zealand Fringe Festival featured his exhibition Burning Desire, in which he set fire to a pile of miscellaneous objects and exhibited the remains.[6] He received the festival's "off-the-edge" award for this work.[7] He began working in toast in 1999, experimenting first with a trial 940-slice piece outside his supermarket.[1][8] He has said he was inspired to make toast artworks during a family barbecue,[1][9] and after seeing a picture in a magazine by Chuck Close that on first glance looked like it was made out of pieces of toast.[10][11][12]

Bennett created billboard-size images made up of toast in mosaic form. He used computer software to convert photographs into a grid of pixel-like blocks,[13][10][14] and would then toast the bread to the correct shade, using either a commercial oven,[15][13] an oxy-acetylene torch,[13][14] and even occasionally a household toaster.[10] He preferred the Tip Top brand of bread and usually used white bread although said in 2002 that he was experimenting with multi-grain.[13]

His first large artwork, a 2,724-slice mosaic of former Wellington mayor Mark Blumsky created for the 2000 New Zealand Fringe Festival, was destroyed by weather and seagulls after two days; he subsequently used polyurethane to preserve his artworks.[1][8][16] Blumsky said he was impressed with the work but that he felt the eyebrows were "a bit light".[16] It held the world record for the largest toast mosaic until 2005.[17] In 2001 he creatd a 2,124 slice, 7.2 m (24 ft) tall, portrait of the Mona Lisa, featured on a central Wellington building.[13][18] In 2002 he spent a month creating a 2,378-slice portrait of rugby player Jonah Lomu, displayed at Wellington's Café Brava.[13][19] Lomu's manager was unhappy about the image, and said Lomu's image was copyrighted; Bennett said in response that "it would be a very dull world if a person can't go out and make or draw a picture of a person".[20][21][22] Lomu's manager subsequently consented to the artwork remaining on display.[19]

In 2002 he was commissioned by an Australian bread company to create a 7.35 m (24.1 ft) tall 2,989-slice toast portrait of Dame Edna, exhibited on a billboard in La Trobe Street in Melbourne.[1][10][20][23][24][25] In the same year he also created a 5.76 m² (62.0 sq ft) toast portrait of Elvis Presley to mark the 25th anniversary of his death.[15] The portrait of Presley attracted international media interest, and he was featured on CNN, on the BBC and in Time magazine.[10][12]

In 2003 he created a 3 m (9.8 ft) square 3,024-slice portrait of then prime minister Helen Clark wearing a fruit bowl for the Edible Arts Festival in Napier.[26][27] The portrait was vandalised shortly after it was installed, resulting in Bennett agreeing to, as reported by The Dominion Post, "toast a new nose for the portrait".[26] A 2003 article about Bennett's work in tabloid newspaper The Daily Mail was headlined, "Forget the Old Masters such as Remburnt, Pain Gogh and Buttercelli ... Meet Michelangeloaf".[28]

In 2010 he created a 2.4 m (7.9 ft) square 4,234-slice portrait of American president Barack Obama,[1][29] and a 4,204-slice portrait of New Zealand prime minister John Key.[30] The US ambassador, David Huebner, said he believed it to be the first time Obama had been depicted in toast.[31] His portrait of Eminem out of 5,040 M&M's featured in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest picture made from candy.[1][29] His portrait of rugby player Richie McCaw is exhibited at the New Zealand Rugby Museum in Palmerston North.[32] Bennett's other toast portrait subjects included Marilyn Monroe, rugby player Gareth Edwards and beer critic Michael Jackson.[33][34][35]

His work was featured on television shows including Ripley's Believe It or Not in the United States, Amazing Stories in Japan, and Holmes and Campbell Live in New Zealand.[1] It has been exhibited internationally including in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo.[1]

In later years Bennett began creating collage works in addition to portraits, including works inspired by Māori carvings and traditional designs.[14] He noted that he found interpreting indigenous art to be more of a challenge than portrait works.[12]

Bennett was diagnosed with chronic lymphoid leukemia in 2000 and given an estimated 5 years to live.[1][2] In 2014 he donated a toast artwork titled Care, Hope and Love to the cancer ward at Wellington Hospital, following an exhibition at Wellington's Deluxe Café.[9][36] He died from his illness on 6 June 2016 at his home in Island Bay, Wellington, with his wife by his side.[9] A memorial service was held at St Mark's Church in Carterton, where Bennett had designed a stained glass window.[29][37]

• 2014: Hope on Toast, Deluxe Café, Wellington.[1]
• 2011: The Five Greatest Rugby Players of All Time, part of the A Game of Two Halves exhibition at the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, Wellington.[11][38][39]
• 2011: Portrait of Marilyn Monroe, Xintiandi, Shanghai.[40][41]
• 2010: Toast Art Picasso, K11 Art Mall, Hong Kong.[12][42]
• 2009: Just Toasted, South Coast Gallery, Wellington.[43]
• 2006: The Toastman, South Coast Gallery, Wellington.[10]
• 2002: Toast Art, Café Brava, Wellington.[44]
• 2001: Toast @ Toast, Toast Bistro Gallery, Wellington.[45][46]
• 2000: Portrait of Mark Blumsky, New Zealand Fringe Festival, Wellington.[16]
• 1998: Burning Desire, New Zealand Fringe Festival, Wellington.[10][6]

• Official website