This month, whilst on an Artist’s Winter Residency at Queille Chateau, I thought long and hard about The Kitchen Table. I spent my time on the residency planning some very large paintings of scenes set around kitchen tables. I hope, when they're made, they will serve as monuments to moments in life. The huge kitchen table at the chateau acted as a stage set, which the rhythms of our days washed over, brushed past and settled at. So, I’d like to dedicate this studio diary to The Kitchen Table and all the time I spend thinking about it…
From my sketchbook...
From my sketchbook...
Some sketchbook pages from my days on the residency; usually on the table at lunch time as I continued to think.
This one, a plan for March’s painting in my new series of monthly Still Lives.
..And this one, a drawing of Will as he cooked butterflied Bream with lemon leaves on the fire to eat with wild asparagus and fennel.
This is a painting from a new series, in which I make a Still Life study each month that pivots around the same format; a central pot of flowers on a kitchen table, beside which rests a phone, a piece of paper (with either an image or some writing on it), an object and a picture on the wall behind the scene. |
I aim to use these paintings as a way of reflecting on life’s happenings; symbolically telling the story of my world as it changes. |
I think there is something particularly wonderful about ephemera on a table and how it can be used to describe the passage of time as you see flowers arrive and die, notes appear, bills, keys, drawings, food and forgotten glasses. No ones explores this moving ephemera better than photographer Mark Lebonwho captures his own kitchen table as is changes each day.
Speaking of kitchen tables… I am SO excited to about the upcoming launch of Mafruha Ahmed’s recipe book ‘Extended Lunch’ which I have illustrated!
Produced by Worms Magazine, it’s an ode to lunch which ‘when approached with care,...becomes a space for creativity, nourishment, and connection beyond what's on the plate.’
Would you rather? WITH PHOTOGRAPHER MARK LEBON
What's your favourite way to eat potatoes? Any way at the moment, as I’m not eating them. Trying to lose weight. Eating some sweet potatoes. Love Crisps and crispy roast potatoes with gravy. And crunchy crumbles of chips.
What recipe do you cook for your loved ones? Never used a cook book. Very eclectic taste. Generally Western/ European.
What do you cook when you’re sick? Chicken soup with finely sliced carrots and shiitake mushrooms.
What is studio lunch? I cook as for loved ones or family if I have the time. Otherwise Turkish or Jamaican. Sometimes go out to Portuguese or Sicilian.
What's your favourite way to eat potatoes? Any way at the moment, as I’m not eating them. Trying to lose weight. Eating some sweet potatoes. Love Crisps and crispy roast potatoes with gravy. And crunchy crumbles of chips.
What recipe do you cook for your loved ones? Never used a cook book. Very eclectic taste. Generally Western/ European.
What do you cook when you’re sick? Chicken soup with finely sliced carrots and shiitake mushrooms.
What is studio lunch? I cook as for loved ones or family if I have the time. Otherwise Turkish or Jamaican. Sometimes go out to Portuguese or Sicilian.