Naked artist pops her (toffee) cherry

Audrey Baldwin - licking her way to success. Photo / Linda Robertson

There was only one thing on artist Audrey Baldwin's mind after her Dunedin Fringe Festival performance "Canker" last night.

"A shower," she said, with a tired grin.

Two and a half hours earlier, Baldwin had crawled into a cavity lined with 1m square by 4mm thick panes of pure toffee and begun to lick her way out.

She had the challenge half-licked before she even started, because the dodecahedron intended to be constructed for the performance was reduced to a hexagon.

"We broke a few panes when we were putting it together," Baldwin said. "So, we had to change the shape of the structure."

A crowd of about 30 curious spectators gathered at 5.30pm in the gallery as she crawled naked into the toffee tomb.

Asked what it was like inside, she replied: "Sticky".

At 8pm, she broke through one of the panes and was greeted by cheers from onlookers.

She emerged, covered with toffee, and blew kisses to the crowd.

"It wasn't as painful as I thought it would be. It was actually quite meditative," said Baldwin of Christchurch.

"Towards the end I remember thinking: 'I am going to get out of this'. It felt so victorious when I broke through."

The project referenced the modern "sugar-rush society", she said.