Artist Valeriano Fatica Carves Breathtaking Masterpieces You Can Eat
While some artists may be concerned with how well they can preserve their work, Italian sculptor Valeriano Fatica is often more worried about how his creations will taste. Specializing in edible art, Fatica first burst onto the social media art scene in 2015 when a video of him carving an intricately detailed dragon head out of watermelon went viral.
He reappeared in all the feeds once more in 2016 when he again used watermelon as a canvas – this time to chisel an extraordinary version of the Night King from Game of Thrones. The video caption says it took him over 18 hours to produce.
Fatica got his start in fruit and vegetable engravings in 2011 while working in his father’s restaurant. “Since I was a child I liked art, but working in my family’s restaurant I didn’t have time to spend with sculptures or paintings. So I decided to use fruit to express myself,” he told BuzzFeed in 2015. He began creating edible masterpieces for the buffet tables, and soon after people started requesting them for their banquets and parties.
Cheese has even become part of the artist’s imaginative repertoire. Using a giant parmesan wheel as a backdrop, he once etched a striking Greek-style face into the block for consumption at a local wedding. He has also crafted a pint-sized bust of Jesus in his crown of thorns. Fatica rates cheese engraving with only a 50-percent difficulty, but gives it a 100-percent score for durability, making them easier to transport.
Most recently, Fatica has garnered social media attention for his coffee bean Avenger carvings. The Incredible Hulk, Thanos, and Nick Fury are among the superheroes and villains to get their images etched into the popular bean.
Thanks to the longevity of the coffee bean sculptures, Fatica has finally been able to start selling his designs to a wider audience. His Etsy store features all his famous java faces, plus plaster casts of his watermelon Night King and several of his cheese works. And for those craving even more of his carvings, Fatica also has his own YouTube channel that shines a light on the fruit master hard at work.