• In Brief
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Yellow Cake is a digital animation that explores the themes of the commons and sustainability using a machine as a metaphor for the earth. The machine and its many complex parts such as cogs and conveyor belts function as a form of mass production.

But what is this machine? Can the wheels keep spinning forever? What could make it stop?

The machine is in perpetual and seemingly harmonious operation. It is beautiful and consists of shapes from the natural world and the man-made in juxtaposition. Forms and textures from nature and transposed onto stylised mechanical parts representing the earth itself, and our lives – a combination of the natural and the man made. Elements inspired by cake design and decoration elude to the adage that everyone gets a slice of the cake (or a division of the spoil) which is certainly not true of our society.

The machine’s processes and eventual breakdown speak to themes around the use of the earth’s natural resources, mass production and greed.

The concept strongly references the idea of what is sustainable. This in turn speaks to ideas about how we can protect the planet (the machine), care for it and deal with the damage that is being done. The conveyor belt is representative of the rotation of Earth as well as the manufacturing process. The golden eggs which sit upon it and are key to the production of the “cake”, refer to the idea of greed and are reminiscent of the childhood fairytale Jack and The Beanstalk, where the antagonist, the Giant holds the goose hostage. The goose lays the golden egg, every day and provides for the giant.

The cake represents the sharing of resources and the idea of fairness.

  • April Hague

    Is a visual artist based in Mount Gambier whose work explores activism and representation through a feminist lens. She works with a wide variety of media and has a diverse range of advanced practical and technical skills, notably in painting and digital illustration, often with a 2D outcome.

    Through her art making, she investigates concepts related to subculture, marginalisation and themes of representation and the empowerment of women. This interest stems from personal experiences living as a neuro-diverse member of the LGBTQI+ community in a rural area.

    April’s arts practice incorporates mural production and she has vast experience in the production of public artworks. She has produced more than 15 murals over the last five years including a major commission for the City of Mount Gambier and the Country Womens’ Association.

    In 2019 she was the recipient of the Urban Cow Emerging Artist Award and was awarded a place in the Country Arts SA Nebula program in 2021. This experience culminated in an award-winning SALA exhibition with all eight Nebula artists. April led a group of artists in The Portrait Project as part of the City of Mount Gambier’s Creative Arts Fund in 2022 and has exhibited widely throughout South Australia. She is active in the arts community and enjoys opportunities to enhance the lives of others through creative expression.

    She established and co-facilitates the popular “Life Drawing Mount Gambier” group which has been operating for over six years and this is an important part of her drawing and painting practice. April is also an award-winning Secondary School Visual Arts Teacher of 26 years experience.

     

  • Luke Pellen

    (born in Adelaide, SA, 1969, now residing in Mt. Gambier, SA) is an award-winning solo exhibited multimedia artist with a background in computer science and psychology.

    He has lectured in multimedia, contributed pioneering work to programming real-time reactive music visualizations, contributed writing to the AI textbook “Parsing the Turning Test” (Springer) and was one of eight finalists in the 2001 Loebner Prize Artificial Intelligence Competition. He has achieved international recognition as an independent AI (Artificial Intelligence) researcher.

    His latest works draw upon a library of over one thousand scanned images of his original sketches, paintings & photographs which are then processed through novel digital means, including the use of custom AI, to create stunning and unique artworks and animations.