After years spent making pastries, chef Robert Teddy dropped his mixing spoon to pick up a pencil, receiving a degree in fine arts en route to a career as a commercial illustrator and designer. Then, after moving to Las Vegas, Teddy returned to his roots, opening his own pastry business, M. Antoinette Legendary Cakes & Confections.

The artist chef now fuses his creative interests, working in the artistic medium of sugar glass. The first public showing of work is on display this month at Trifecta Gallery in an exhibit titled REdeFINED SUGAR.

“Chefs have always done sugar art, but it’s always been attached to food,” Teddy says. “I really wanted to take it into the art world. … I fell in love with the sugar, in terms of casting, cooling, blowing. I love the medium.”

REdeFINED SUGAR features sugar glass mobiles inspired by famed mobile sculptor Alexander Calder, polymer-coated sugar glass necklaces (which will be worn by Neiman Marcus models throughout the evening) and a pair of large, cast sugar glass Buddha hands holding a sugar glass lotus flower. Teddy considers the “star of the show” to be his 10-foot chandelier, with a metal core and acrylic “ligatures,” and sugar glass flowers attached at the ends.

“I am trying to make people look at [sugar], or reframe it, not as a commodity and not attached to food, but as actual fine art.”