In February I was lucky enough to be invited back to Château de Queille in the South of France to undertake a self-directed painting residency.
It was cold and calm and quiet and really everything I need to make work. Will joined me for the first two weeks and while I painted he experimented in the kitchen – cooking produce from our daily trip to SuperU on the huge open fire in the kitchen.
I thought a lot about something I had read the artist Henry Ward say – that if he could tell his younger self one thing it would be just to paint what you want to paint – so with this in mind I began to plan a large piece (that I’m now working on back in the studio) that centres around food being prepared around the kitchen table.
The first, Artichoke & Mussels, focused on a cropped section of my XXL painting...
The pot of flowers was inspired by a pile of rubbish I saw before I left. When I walked past it, I double took because it looked so like one of my still lives sat there on the roadside.
The second, Rotting Lemons & Wild Hellebores was painted from the lemons outside the kitchen door.
We were going to try and make marmalade from the fresh bits but the rot had spread too far so I celebrated them in this painting.
The third, Butter & Bream, was painted from a beautiful fish we brought at the supermarket – I painted it quickly on a chilled plate before Will cooked it for dinner, served with pickled kumquats and celeriac slaw.
Simply put, I love to paint in red and with this piece I was imagining all the aspects of the still life were frozen in terracotta clay. These paintings will be in Vernal Unfolding, a show by Milieu Studios at their gallery in St Ives in March.
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