His face is made of prosciutto, his eyelids fat from mortadella.
Muskolini, a food-rendition of Elon Musk, is the latest creation from Guelph artist Barbara Salsberg Mathews.
“I don’t have a great deal of fondness for the man, to put it politely,” she said. “I think it was therapeutic to play with my food.”
The likeness of the billionaire businessman turned senior advisor to the president was achieved by layering deli meats and eggplant hair.
His frowning lips are made of roasted red peppers, nostrils of small pasta, eyes of small peppercorns, hair of eggplant.
Cleaning up after making ‘Muskolini’, my latest food art portrait.
— Barbara Salsberg Mathews (@salsbergmathews.bsky.social) March 16, 2025 at 5:55 PM
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It’s not the first time Salsberg Matthews has played with her food; having previously created Premier Doug Ford (Meat Head), Donald Trump (Deli Don) and Vladimir Putin (Mad Vlad).
“I initially created these portraits for fun and out of disgust with their abuse of power,” said Mathews in 2022 about Mad Vlad and Deli Don.
Now, given “all the background noise coming from the States” and the way it’s impacting Canada and the world, she said she felt compelled to act.
“What I can do in the realm of my control (is) art,” she said. “So I’ve added Muskolini with his buddies, Deli Don and Mad Vlad.”
Mad Vlad's image was used to raise funds for Ukraine, and is hoping to do something similar with Muskolini, possibly to support efforts by MP Charlie Angus, who she said has a newsletter “and is gathering people together and trying to keep our spirits up and inform us.”
“I’d like to support what he’s doing,” she said, suggesting Angus could raise funds by using the art to create t-shirts or cards.
“We need to laugh more. Life’s so precious, and all the anger is not going to do anybody any good,” she said. “So we fight back, but we can fight back with humour too.”