Sweets are not just meant for eating, they can be used for art too! Artist Michelle Wibowo recently used tasty treats to create a life-size replica of Michelangelo’s famous Sistine Chapel painting – The Creation of Adam. Measuring 18’9’’ by 9’2’’, it features 10,000 marshmallows and half a billion cake sprinkles. It’s been rightly dubbed, ‘The Baking of Adam’.
Michelle took 168 hours to complete the project that marks the 450th anniversary of Michelangelo’s death. “Britain is currently gripped by baking fever with a real emphasis on unique designs and showmanship,” said the 35-year-old artist who baked the masterpiece for Cake Angels. “When we learnt of Michelangelo’s anniversary celebrations, we really wanted to join in. We decided to challenge the boundaries of cake design by immortalizing his most heavenly creation in our own special way. No celebration is complete without cake and we really hope that Michelangelo would have given us his official seal of approval.”
According to creative director Alex Balzaretti, “Cake Angles is all about inspiring the baker through creativity and innovation. We’ve been looking for a project for a long time that enabled us to do that and it became apparent that 2014 was going to be a historic year in the celebration of the life of Michelangelo. His most important and probably prized work of art is The Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and what more heavenly creation to be picked.”
Photo: Cake Angels
To create the artwork, Michelle used a computer software and scanned the original painting. She then put together 24 different colored sprinkles for the replica. “We used our range of versatile and vibrant sprinkles, proving that even cake can become a fantastic art canvas. The real difficulty was matching his exact scale and style but the possibilities are endless when you have so many textures and colors to choose from,” she said.
Michelle said she was very excited to have a go at recreating such a famous work of art. “Working with so many tiny pieces requires a steady hand. But it could be worse. Michelangelo spent four years hunched under the ceiling, with paint dripping on his face.”
The Baking of Adam is currently on display at St Pancras Church, one of the London’s most famous churches with its own art gallery. Everything on the canvas is completely edible, including the ‘glue’ made from icing, butter and vanilla frosting. But I don’t suppose anyone’s really in a hurry to eat the thing. The piece is all set to be auctioned off for charity.
Source: Cake Angels via BT
