TSIM SHA TSUI, Hong Kong – Even the genius Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) likely never imagined creating a version of his most famous painting, the Mona Lisa, out of toasted bread. Five centuries later, modern artist Maurice Bennett tackled the task.

For a Food Art Festival at Hong Kong's K11 shopping mall, 53-year-old Maurice, helped by local art students, recently glued 6,000 toast slices into place to create Sweet Delight Mona Lisa, a mosaic version of da Vinci's masterpiece. Maybe he even solved the mystery of the original's enigmatic smile. The new portrait has Mona Lisa holding a tasty-looking ice-cream cone.

“What I do qualifies as art because art is an expression of self,” said Maurice, from Wellington, New Zealand. “I've chosen toast-art as my way to create pictures and interpret the world.”

Maurice and the K11 shopping mall believe that Sweet Delight Mona Lisa should establish a Guinness World Record for the most slices of toast in an artwork. Earlier, Maurice, who prefers toast and a blowtorch flame to a canvas and paintbrush, set a record for the largest (by dimensions) toast-artwork (a portrait of former Wellington mayor Mark Blumsky).

For three weeks, Maurice used traditional toasters, commercial ovens and much of his time to do the toasting in New Zealand. “With a traditional toaster, you get textured coloring, as opposed to slices done in an oven for a good tonal color…,” he said. “I started with a template, so I knew how many light and dark slices to do.” Then he shipped his toast to Hong Kong.

“We asked Maurice to do something special for us,” said K11 representative Sandy Chan. “We'll display Sweet Delight Mona Lisa at our entrance.”

Opened in 2009, K11 (mysteriously named to promote creative thought) is a “people-friendly”, art-adorned shopping complex. “Like artwork does, our name can have different meanings for everyone,” Chan said. The Food Art Festival, involving 23 restaurants and 20 artists, ends in October.

Maurice also held an exhibition of other toast-art and conducted workshops to show how it's done. Fashion models even wore his toast-dresses.

A pioneer in his unusual genre, Maurice has done about 1,000 toast-artworks. The best include portraits of United States president Barack Obama, singer Elvis Presley, former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, rugby star Jonah Lomu, movie director Peter Jackson and female impersonator Dame Edna Everage.

For non-portraits, Maurice often finds inspiration in shapes, colors, nature, Maori and other cultures, world events or religious objects. Sometimes he uses cookie-cutters on toast for circular patterns. His works have diverse titles, like World of Finance, Pacific Motorway, Sticks and Stones, Stigmata, Waterholes, The Twin Towers Toasted and Exotic Dancer.

Straying slightly, he once created a colorful portrait of rap singer Eminem using 5,040 M&M candies. That, too, put him in the Guiness Book of World Records – for the biggest candy picture.

Depending on size and complexity, doing a toast-artwork takes hours, days or weeks. “Inspiration can be the most difficult part,” Maurice said. “The work may take a day, but I could need a month to consider how to approach it.”

Maurice's works appear on billboards and in restaurants, bars, other public places and in museums, private and corporate collections. They sell for NZ$600 to $15,000. His smallest creation consisted of three toast slices.

“Some people approach me and think, ‘Wow! He put 25 slices of toast into a frame and wants this price for it?’ They need to understand I've been at this for a long time, and people will pay…. Usually, I get NZ$6,000 for a good-sized work.”

A former supermarket owner, Maurice hated to see unsold food wasted, so he imagined using the leftover bread for art. Later he sold the supermarket, but arranged for a bread supplier to send surplus loaves to him. “Now I have time to fulfill my passion for art,” he said. “My greatest passion is making art out of toast.”

For 10 years, Maurice has worked full-time at art. His creations draw attention from newspapers, magazines and TV, including the Ripley's Believe It or Not show.

Eventually, uneaten toast cracks and crumbles, but Maurice ensures longevity by soaking his slices in polyurethane or similar chemicals. That renders the art inedible, but guards it from passing time, the elements and pests, like insects or birds.

“Once someone did eat a piece from one of my artworks hanging in a pub,” Maurice said. The culprit survived, but toast-art should be “digested” by sight, not taste.

Decades ago, Maurice studied architecture at Auckland University. Always fond of art, he traveled to museums in the United States and Europe. Then as a “starving would-be artist”, he returned to New Zealand. Badly needing a job, he went to work at a supermarket.

Maurice has a wife and two adult daughters. “My wife married me knowing I was into the arts and always creating stuff,” he said. “When I started working with toast, my wife and children thought it was a bit gimmicky and wouldn't last. Now that I’ve persevered so long, they've come around to say ‘Dad's kind of creative.’ They always take an interest in what I'm doing.”

Toast-art takes smaller sizes too.




A famous lady enjoys a treat in the giant portrait.




'With a traditional toaster, you get
textured coloring, as opposed to slices
done in an oven for a good tonal color.'




Coming to fashion capitals? A belt with baguettes.