Elizabeth Saloka paints groceries and gadgets onto rocks – yep, rocks

We always love hearing about a creative's first moments that inspired their wonderful practices. And the weirder and more random the better, honestly. For New York-based artist Elizabeth Saloka – who was adopted from South Korea when she was two and grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis – it was the very moment she stumbled across a rock on the ground in New Jersey. Yep, a rock, which she decided to paint and turn into a Nokia phone. "After that I started painting rocks wherever I had free time," she says. "I started out bringing rocks I'd painted into the city with me to work and took photos of the rocks over lunch breaks and after work."

After being let go from her marketing copywriter job when the pandemic hit, Elizabeth started waitressing at a friend's restaurant and – of course – selling rocks on the side. "While I didn't go to art school, I had the best high school art teacher, Brad Nuorala. He was such a great teacher: honest, direct, funny and full of energy."

So why rocks, you might ask? Of course it's the shape and texture that really gets Elizabeth's creative cogs turning. But there's also something a little more philosophical. "It's like when people look at clouds and see animals or other things in them," she explains. "The physical nature of the rock is the prompt that pulls items from my memory bank. Sometimes they are things from way back, and I'm surprised to be reminded they existed."

With that covered, your next question might be – well, how does she choose which rock to pick? There are so many in our world, nestled under walls, hidden away or right in our faces. There are lumpy ones, bumpy ones, ones with sharp edges, some with gaping holes or strange, anthropomorphic forms. "I mostly find rocks on the street or in construction dump sites," Elizabeth says.

"You choose the side of the rock that will be the bottom of the piece. It should be sturdy, obviously. If the rock is not the exact shape of the subject, you kind of distort the lines to match the rock. When it's possible to have the actual product you're painting, it's ideal. I have so many groceries I buy just to paint, but don't really have a desire to eat. But then I'll get hungry and eat them. I try to hold off and not eat the thing inside the packaging until I'm done painting, because for whatever reason an empty box is not as inspiring to paint as when the box still has the item in it."

"I also have a rule that I do not alter the rocks," she continues. "I once had a long thin rock that would have made for two great Reynolds Wraps. So I snapped it on my knee and immediately regretted it. Part of the inspiration with the rocks is the constraint. You must make it work with the original form. There is freedom in that boundary."

Across her portfolio, you'll spot a range of subject matter plastered on these earthly formations. There's a bunch of sweet things: a Bonne Maman raspberry jam; a Tootsie Roll chocolate taffy candy bar; and a Sweet' n Low sweetener. There are Heinz ketchup packages, distorted slightly where the rocks warp and shift – appearing like someone's just squeezed out all the juice on their chips. More food items include a box of macaroni cheese, painted with the rough texture of sandpaper, plus more random objects like a Blockbuster video, a remote control (to size), and one of Darwin – the seven-month-old monkey who wandered around an Ikea store in Toronto, Canada, wearing a shearling coat.

Elizabeth's favourites include a broken brick box of Old Dutch potato chips and what she thinks: "is a cut paver box of Creamette spaghetti" – which she always had in the cupboard growing up. "I stumbled on Creamette online while looking for old food packaging, and it was like looking at an old photograph of, like, your elementary school friend you forgot about that has been in the basement for decades.

"It takes you back to a feeling of a time that is not there anymore. The Old Dutch packaging – I really love the colour combo and the style in general with the font and the windmill. I also didn't realise it was a bit of a regional brand. You learn a lot about food brands from people reacting to a piece that is part of their local history."

Up next, Elizabeth will be holding a solo exhibition of some of her rocks – plus some never-seen-before photos of them – at the Dog House Gallery at The Brooklyn Comedy Collective in Bushwick, curated by Dr Lisa Levy, which opens this month. She will also be participating in a group exhibition, Public Utility Commission, held by The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust at Space Gallery in Pittsburgh.

Oh, and let's not forget she will be holding a rock version of 'Is it cake?' at Enclave in London in late October. And finally she's also working on building a collection of products that were in her mum's kitchen growing up, with the idea that she could do a rock replica of her exact kitchen in 80s Minnesota. Proving the absolute versatility and amazing power of the rock as an artistic material again.