It appears to be a painting at first glance, but Sharon Core's "Still Life with Steak" is a meticulously composed photograph, which is inspired by 19th-century American artist Raphaelle Peale's painting of the same name.
"Everything is built on a pyramid,” Core said, "so it appears very solid and aesthetically whole, but the details of the objects belie a more grotesque reality”: the visual assault of a bloody piece of raw meat (and the contrastingly wan, fingerlike asparagus), the tension between painterliness and photographic precision. Heightening the impression of assault, a dry, purplish carrot emerges from the glistening flesh, leading the eye to an unwashed beet lurking behind the fat at right."
I want to grill and then eat that photograph.