A Bronx art teacher is feeding her passion for food by painting her diet choices.

Noelle Knight's love for healthy food motivated her to create an exhibition called "Food Value: Still Life Paintings."

"The response was very positive. I had a lot of people relate their personal stories about food, maybe the struggles they've had with food or just dealing with making good choices daily," she says. 

The city art teacher lost her father to diabetes last year.

"That got me thinking daily about what I'm eating and making better choices," she says. 

Knight says she wants to inspire people to make healthy choices by painting a nutritious food option next to every unhealthy choice. She says she hopes she can get her point across by using art.

"Art is really magical," she says. "You're starting with a blank canvas and then turning it into a picture. So, it's nothing and then turns into something that's believable: space with real objects that you almost feel like you could reach out and touch." 

Knight is a representational oil painter, which means her goal is to recreate objects through her art.

"I think the power is to teach people. I think you can reach a lot of people in ways they're not aware of," she says. 

She received a degree in medical illustration from Indiana University. She completed her master's degree in New York City. As a teacher of students in kindergarten through eighth grade, she tries to inspire her pupils to chase their dreams. 

"I talk to them about that a lot because they have a lot of questions and some may be struggling academically but excel in the more creative parts of their life," she says. 

The Riverdale YMCA hosted Knight's exhibition, during which she sold five paintings.