Alexander Long creates sculptural works that look like celebratory cakes but examine the darker undercurrents of consumer culture. Born in Bakersfield, California in 1992, Long is based in Oakland where he crafts gateau-esque sculptures from acrylic, oil paints, beeswax, plaster, and concrete. Instead of traditional birthday messages, his “cakes” display unsettling imagery: night vision footage, thermal imaging, stock photography, cowboy boots, and stone pillars.

“Whatever is placed on a cake becomes a celebration of that subject,” Long explains. By embedding military surveillance aesthetics within the cheerful language of cake decoration, Long explores what he calls “capitalist fear mitigation”—how violent and disturbing imagery becomes normalized through constant media exposure.

Growing up in Fresno, Long watched farmland transform into tract housing and retail chains. “I’m interested in how corporations use imagery to manufacture desire, and in what is actually being sold,” he says. Long’s recent solo exhibition Frosted Visions was held at Book & Job Gallery in San Francisco.