Stephanie Shih
The First Slice, 2023
Looping video, monitor, digital media player, plaster, acrylics
Courtesy of the artist

This work is on loan for the exhibition, Living Here, at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, June 20 - December 20, 2025.

Seventeenth-century flower paintings from The Netherlands often use dark backgrounds and deep shadows to counterpoint the bright colors of their subject matter. Here, Stephanie Shih (史欣雲) uses that visual language to symbolically unite Europe with, in her words, “comfort foods from my own upbringing as a Taiwanese-Chinese American—foods that are derided as ‘strange’ in the United States but hold quotidian significance in Chinese culture.”

Referring to The First Slice, she writes, “My oldest childhood friend and I grew up with Oakland Chinatown birthday cakes like this one from Napoleon Super Bakery (拿破崙餅) gracing our tables every celebration. When we got older, we continued to order from the same bakeries ourselves using our out-of-practice Chinese language skills (which resulted in ordering accidents like all-pink cakes that became part of our traditions)." As part of her practice, Shih credits the local businesses and artisans who provided her with materials; she notes that the cake slice was carved by the sculptor Lap Ngo.