Sweet Street Art: Sugar Murals

Montreal artist Shelley Miller creates intricate murals with sugar icing and edible paint applied like cake frosting, with a piping bag and tip. The street art starts out solid, but eventually disintegrates or washes away in the rain.

The installation above – called Stained – in Victoria, B.C., reflects the historic area’s ornate Victorian architecture.  Miller says the title alludes to “sugar’s stained historical links to slavery.”  Below, a sequence showing the disintegration of Cargo in Montreal (Duke St. at William St.)  66” × 138” at Day 1, Day 4, Day 5 and Day 7.

Above, installing Cargo / Below, detail of Cargo, a billboard in the style of a traditional Portuguese ceramic “azulejo.” Miller paints white sugar tiles with the blue edible paint, and affixes them with icing, then pipes the edges.

Below, Pipe Dreams in Montreal — cake icing applied to the side of an industrial building in a project that took two weeks to install.  The final shot shows close-up detail at one week, six weeks and 12 weeks.

Shelley Miller does a wide variety of other public art installations, including moulded concrete and quilt-inspired designs in ceramic and glass mosaic.

Her sculptures and public works have been exhibited across Canada, India and Brazil.  She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Alberta College of Art and Design and a Masters in Fine Arts from Concordia University, Montreal.

Shelley Miller’s website, here.