ABOUT US
Born of an obsessive compulsive cake fetish disorder, Everlasting Cakes rose from the ovens to create a range of cake paintings and cake painting products in celebration of the cake.
Fun, frivolity and an edgy quirkiness may best describe the work of Kathy Santiago. Underneath these whimsical images is a social commentary and peeling away of the veneers of today’s life, particularly in Britain.
The branding of areas of her work poke fun at marketing gurus, our gullibility and need to identify with media induced celebrity front men that are seen as necessary to validate our identity. Examples of this are seen in The Glow Show, Everlasting Cakes and Road Show series plus Monster Juice.
The Glow Show depicts illustrated interpretations of pithy by-lines which aptly encompass trying to get by in our all consuming society. The Glow Show embraces finished products as well as bespoke commissionable works as in the wedding cake pieces.
Everlasting Cakes embodies a life’s work of baking and image making. A synopsis of what women (and some men) do in connecting with themselves, their selves and their families. The cakes become everlasting because of the images, but also through the act that they always exist as pieces of information shared between (wo)men. The transfer of these recipes ensures memories of experience, the particular person and tradition. Somewhere nourishment is addressed with gay abandon and disrespect for carrot munching faddists.
The cake is symbol of indulgence: of joy and enjoyment, something that size 0’s deny and the rest of us guiltily partake. It is not only the eating, it is the making, an alchemy that takes place in the kitchen. The process of doing so is just as creative as picture making. This is something we can all do. Not just famous artists and media friendly celebrity chefs……..
Santiago insists that her works are accessible to all in the publication of affordable books; each publication being a little work of art - a 112 pg print run and the provision of cakes at all ’Road Show’ events. For those more discerning customers there are the original paintings. The metaphor of celebrity is continued through this publication as a triumph in attempting to obtain a publisher was achieved by one of many rejection slips saying that the work was not tenable as the author was not famous – a bingo coup!
Everlasting Cakes is dedicated to the memory of the artist’s mother; Kathy is pleased and proud that a percentage of the profit from each book is donated to Macmillan Cancer Support.
The Road Show is an onslaught of painted works, books, rejection slips, cakes and ‘Burp’ The Movie – all of which celebrate in the broadest of senses the cake and related experiences.
Monster Juice; a bottled sauce created with gusto to blow your mind, own a culinary work of art to be used as a condiment. Make each meal a creative experience!
Her work invokes all six senses – taste, smell, touch, sight, hearing and the spiritual – making, eating and sharing yummy stuff is nourishing for body and soul, and the ’ of being in the zone’ space that creating the work instils.
Can any of this be taken in any way seriously? These are not ‘horses over hedges’ paintings that hang over the mantelpiece and match the chintz, they are bold, sassy quirky images that engage, amuse and perhaps to those who look closely – say something else.