Marie-Aubeline Hiot—The Art Of Sweetness
French-born artist and former pastry chef Marie-Aubeline Hiot turns colour and texture into sensory artwork, where sweetness, memory, and form come together.
Words HANDE RENSHAW Photos COURTESY OF MARIE AUBELINE HIOT
‘I think inspiration lives in the small things; the way light hits a table after breakfast on a summer day, the crumbs left from a shared dessert or the colours of melting sorbet on a hot day,’ says Marie-Aubeline Hiot.
Sweet Stack by Marie-Aubeline Hiot.
‘The playfulness of the structure echoes that sense of wonder I always chased as a kid, standing in front of a gelato counter. Those moments of wonder, curiosity and delight are the feelings I try to capture when choosing desserts or textures for my work.’
‘My background as a pastry chef makes me curious about textures, dough and the physical act of creating.’
‘Art has always been my foundation, but moving to Australia led me into baking, which reshaped how I see the world.’
“Each sculpture feels like a summer memory that’s slipping between your fingers, the sweetness and the impermanence happening at the same time.”
‘My studio is a beautiful mess, it feels alive. I have a corner with all my paints labelled like ingredients: butter, hazelnut, rhubarb, cream, intense vanilla and melted butter.’
‘Each colour carries both a flavour and an emotion: raspberry red brings energy and passion, pistachio green feels calm and comforting, buttery yellow feels warm and inviting.’
In the hands of French-born, Sydney-based artist Marie-Aubeline Hiot, the act of making becomes an experience of sensation and memory. Once a pastry chef, Marie-Aubeline now channels the same sensitivity into painting and sculpture.
‘Art has always been my foundation, but moving to Australia led me to baking, which reshaped how I see the world,’ Marie-Aubeline shares. ‘Being a pastry chef made me attentive to texture, colour and the subtle ways materials interact. It taught me to be precise and to create experiences that engage all the senses.’
That sensorial language—the way icing folds, butter gleams, how pastry cracks, is carried through her artwork. ‘Over time, I realised these lessons could also belong in painting, where I could translate the sensory joy, ritual and care of pastry into colour, form and texture,’ she explains. ‘My early culinary experience changed how I think about creating and invites viewers to feel and experience my work in a multi sensory way.’ The artist’s canvases and sculptures are luscious and layered, balancing playfulness with precision, nostalgia with immediacy.
Marie-Aubeline’s practice finds beauty in the quiet rituals of daily life. ‘Living between two cultures made me more aware of the details that make everyday life rich and meaningful,’ she says. ‘French culture taught me the beauty in ritual and care, while being in Sydney gave me space to experiment and see these rituals from a distance.’ This duality, memory and experimentation, defines her visual language: a palette of gelato tones and pastel glazes that evoke both comfort and curiosity.
For Marie-Aubeline, dessert becomes a language for feeling—a way to hold memory in colour and form. She draws on breakfasts in the French countryside, cicadas and croissants, and a child’s-eye view of Tuscan gelaterias, translating those sensorial notes into her work, including I Don’t Know What to Get! —a grid of nine panels that read like gelato flavours. The same impulse drives the Ice Pop series: glossy, melting sculptures poised between play and impermanence, each one capturing that fleeting instant when sweetness slips away, ‘Like a summer memory slipping between your fingers, the sweetness and the impermanence happening at the same time,’ shares Marie-Aubeline.
Her studio reflects the same sensory abundance, calm and chaos in equal measure, with paints labelled butter, hazelnut, and rhubarb. ‘Colour is my starting point, it is the mood that shapes the work before anything else takes form. I’m naturally drawn to pastels and food-inspired tones as they reflect my subject. Each colour carries both a flavour and an emotion: raspberry red brings energy and passion, pistachio green feels calm and comforting, buttery yellow feels warm and inviting.’
Marie-Aubeline’s artwork is an ode to the overlooked; crumbs after dessert, the shimmer of melting sorbet, the light after breakfast. ‘I love the idea of giving importance to what’s often overlooked,’ she says, ‘transforming something ordinary into something to be savoured, like turning a simple ingredient into a beautiful pastry.’
To stay up to date with Marie-Aubeline Hiot’s work, visit her website or follow @marieaubeline.hiot on Instagram.
