Make my tummy go GROWL!

Just looking at all these food makes me hungry!

Kim Burke masterfully combines design and art with my favourite thing in the whole wide world: FOOD. Her miniature food sculptures are absolutely incredible. She realistically creates everything from apple pie, to sushi, to cheese wedges from polymer clay. The amazing part is, they all look completely realistic and would be hard to distinguish from real food if it weren't for the giant fingers in the photos. These food sculptures are actually 1/12 of their actual size (approx 1 inch)!! I cannot even imagine how she creates almost the exact colour and texture of the food and made them so detailed they look real and good enough to eat!

Here was what Kim Burke said about making miniature food art:

From a very young age, I’ve been enthralled by miniatures and was delighted at how wonderfully addicting it is to make them. It’s truly remarkable when the delectable textures of food can be reflected on such a tiny scale.

I strive to make each miniature of the highest quality possible with the most realistic details. My inspiration largely comes from scouring cook books and local pastry shops for ideas. Desserts and gourmet food are my favorite to create but I’m open to any challenge to take on!

Kim Burke has been a huge inspiration for me throughout my coursework as her works made me realised how appealing and fun food art can be and how food art can be one of the ways I portrayed my concepts through. Even though I couldn't create such beautiful and realistic food (due to lack of experience with polymer clay and creating food sculptures), I managed to many create my kind of food (desserts) using mainly paper clay, paper mache and a variety of different materials such as newspaper, tennis balls, plaster etc.

Also, I felt that my coursework would not be the same if I had created such realistic food items as my concept was "the irony of fairy tales and nursery rhymes" and somehow my entire project would have lost the feel of a childhood table setting that feels beautiful and magical but still has the touch of childhood immaturity. I felt that my imperfections in my artworks have portrayed the imperfections of childhood and the idea of not even trying to pursue perfection as a child. Also I feel that the imperfections and unrealistic aspect of my food sculptures also represented the imperfections of the fairy tales and nursery rhymes (the gory and sadistic aspect) and how unrealistic they are. Yet, they are a very subtle part of my artwork, just like how children and parents in modern days can overlook the "dark side" of a fairy tale and still enjoy immensely.

I hope my coursework has allowed it viewers to enjoy as much as they had enjoyed fairy tales and nursery rhymes when they were young.

All in all, I have to thanks Kim Burke for being a great artist and inspiration and her art has motivated me to do food art and has made me push until the very end :D GREAT THANKS TO KIM BURKE, THE FANTASTIC CHEF/ARTIST!!