UK artist fools millions with hyper-realistic, provocative cakes

A young artist has fooled millions on TikTok with her hyper-realistic, provocative cakes of fake raw meat and even a SLUG. Tatum Parden, an Artist and Fine Art student at Central Saint Martins University in London, began making realistic cakes after being inspired by "weird" artwork with unconventional materials. Twenty-year-old Tatum filmed herself making a realistic pigeon cake which she ran over with a car. After posting the video to Instagram, Tatum realised she loved the combination of realism with the shocked response from viewers. Tatum has always been into sculpture and when she needed a new project, she landed on the idea of making a realistic raw chicken leg out of cake. Her raw chicken cake video suddenly went viral, with people equally impressed and entirely grossed out by her talent. She said: “To be honest, I’m not very good at making actual food and the cakes are not very tasty. “I just love performance art and the ‘shock factor’ that it brings.” Tatum posted her cake creations online because she wanted to get a reaction, whatever it was. She emphasised the importance of engaging with commenters to discuss the way they felt and their opinions. “Whether someone feels joy towards my art because they like ‘weird’ or if they hate it and think it’s horrible, I like that people communicate their reactions with me.”