Free Cake Exhibition

Photos by Tessa Gray

A couple of weeks ago Tessa Gray and I had an exhibition in Westside Foyer. We placed posters around the University advertising free cake, however upon arriving at the exhibition it became apparent to the viewer that the cake was not possible to reach as it was very high up from the floor.

People tried though and some succeeded.

We also showed videos from the photobooth project, which I will post footage of soon, and the earlier tempt project. I included the bronze cupcake from my personal work as an opposing object to the Tempt video.

Cake Lady Cynthia

For international Women's day I collaborated with two artists to make a lady out of cake. I've made a lot of work with cake recently and Grace Belli, who works close to me in the studio works a lot with naked ladies, so when she suggested we collaborate, it seemed ideal. Tess Gray is another artist who works mostly with painting, but we also regularly collaborate on many cake based ventures, so she also joined the collaboration and became head of painting.

We were going to do a show together at Winchester School of Art, however an opportunity presented itself to hold an exhibition at Southampton University Student's Union, for International Women's Day, so we took it.


It required a lot of baking.

It was a well received part of the exhibition and got a lot of attention. We invited people to help themselves and eat of her flesh. The piece became an interactive performance.

Photographs by Isaac Whitcombe

I also organised the exhibition, which was curated by Letitia Northcott, I will post pictures of the show in another entry.

Wales, Easter 2011

Free Cake

Free Cake
An exhibition by Laura Gardner and Tessa Gray
Westside Foyer, Winchester School of Art
21st - 24th February 2012

Winchester School of Art launch of the Winchester Centre for Global Futures in Art Design & Media!

Wednesday night was the Launch of the Winchester Centre for Global Futures (The name is really overly long, so I'm not going to keep writing it. Instead I'll go with WCGF).

The prospect of three hours of lectures seemed a little daunting, but as It got started, It actually flew by, the speakers were really engaging and there was a lot of time for questions, which I think is always the most important part anyway.

Most students went to see Jake Chapman of the Chapman brothers speak and he did not disappoint. He was down to earth and very open, willingly admitting that he hadn't enjoyed art school himself, though from his description of it, the art school we now know is much different to that of the past. Also when asked how his brother would be involved with his research he joked that he could carry his briefcase and clean his glasses.

I got to talk to Jake a bit after the lecture and asked him about collaborations, he said that it's a little bit of arguing and pushing for what you want, but it's great because only half of it is you and you have someone to see it differently and to critique you, he also spoke of how although everything had there name, they did not split it all 50/50 or anything, but some things were something one of them wanted to do more than the other. I can't imagine working with a sibling though although I suppose you can push your sibling further with less fear of offending them.

Overall I think that the WCGF will be an important part of Winchester School of Art. Research has always been a strong part of the University of Southampton's ethos and reputation and I'm glad that WSA is moving and evolving with the rest of the University.

Bronze Cupcake...

So here is the finished cupcake. The photos are by Aidan Connor Frame, a fellow student, as I took so long to take any good pictures of it someone else got there first.

We had an interim show this week, so I displayed the cupcake. It was meant to be on show with a video but I had technological problems and no time to fix them, so it was just the cupcake in the end.

I love this little cupcake, probably because it took me so long to finish and polish up. I don't like it when people tell me it's not perfect because I spent so long working on it and improving it.

People love handling it though and it is nice to touch. It's always heavier than people expect, which is funny as the plaster ones are always lighter than people expect.

Collage Art - John Stezaker

I have recently been working will collage. I thought I would look at the work of John Stezaker as he is one of the more famous artists working with collage.

Stezakers work is not complex, he often only collages two images, but they have a big impact. They have been so carefully selected due to the fact that they are compositionally perfect together. Stezaker himself says that he's at an advantage when doing work as he is always finding images. There's always something to do. (See here for an interview with him; http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/triennial/video.shtm) I think that is the great thing about collage. Nothing has to be tidy or finished, the work is always ongoing and I think I could learn from him in that, by working constantly, the art continues and develops.

He also says that we all create our own audience to the work, which is someone like ourselves. I can see what he means, as we often get reactions to our work that we don't understand. We wonder why others didn't see our work in the same way we would have seen it. I think looking at the way people see our work is important and I would like to try and gain some feedback on my work in the future to see how others interpret it.

What makes an object Art?

Is this Art? Pompidou Centre, Paris

So what is art? I've been writing an essay on the subject for Visual Culture and it's been really interesting. So many theories have been introduced on the subject, it's hard to know which to believe.
Personally I think art is such a difficult thing to define. I think there are several things which make something likely to be art, from being called art by the 'Artworld', being made by an Artist, having meaning or depth of some kind or even just being aesthetically pleasing.
In the end, the more of these characteristics a piece has, the more likely it is to be art, but there are many pieces which do not tick all the boxes and we should not expect them to.

I want to be surprised by art. The Artworld only works without rules and restrictions. We as the artworld are responsible, in my opinion, of making sure rules are not placed. Only then can art grow and change and stay relevant.

I have enjoyed reading the theories of Philosophers such as Danto and Dickie on the subject of What makes something art, rather than an artefact and I am sure I will continue now to read these theories and enjoy them, much in the way I enjoy reading articles by modern critics. I read them, but never take them too seriously, because in the end I have my own cultural ideas around art and they will be different to those of others, I wouldn't want them to be the same, because then our art would not be as varied and unique to us personally.

Cakeland - Scott Hove

Scott Hove says of Cakeland on his Kickstarter page;

"Cakeland is an art installation. Cakeland is also a refuge of beauty, emotional experience and safe fantasy. Everyone has a relationship to cake, in the form of memories around family, marriage, birthdays and celebration. Using the theme of cake, I draw you into my sculptures and installations with the promise and expectation of familiar relation. Yet in experiencing Cakeland, you are faced with unexpected challenges; as in life, it takes patience and determination to win your reward. I guarantee, however, that you won't have to work too hard, because Cakeland, before all else, is a place of joy."

Just recently came across the work of Scott Hove. His Cake themed sculptures and installations are amazing. He talks of his works as 'Indulgent' which is part of the reason why I love it so much. It doesn't pretend to be innocent.

Although inedible, the sculptures are all very tempting and teasing. Hove uses traditional cake decorating tools in his works.

I feel like this is definitely inspiring work.

The Event II at Winchester School of Art

On the 15th December, Fine art came together for 'The Event II'.

It was an unbelievably busy day and an amazing success.

Here's a picture of me in my mask (made of cupcake cases and sprayed gold), taken by one of the Live Press photographers;

I am with my friend Tessa Gray, who I often collaborate with. In fact, on the night we worked on a Photobooth together, thanks to previously made plans and Tess' technical know how, it went down without a hitch and we got the images we needed.

Our sign was clearly awesome.

Here's a picture of the booth:

The booth is an interesting piece of work, but the photographs are not yet ready to exhibit, as the final outcome of the project needs more work and it's quite an ambitious piece, but all will be revealed soon.

I also did a piece on the performance stage at The Event. I have yet to edit the video but see below for a couple of stills;



The performance was me 'decorating' my face with cake decorating ingredients including Icing, hundreds and thousands, edible gold dust and edible gold glitter flakes.

It was the first time I had done the performance and it went reasonably well. I would like to do it again though using buttercream and icing flowers etc and make the whole thing more intricate and less messy, so it becomes less about covering my face and more about the decorative aspect.

I also want the camera to be far closer to me when I film it next time.