Gardening and cooking are favourite pastimes for many, and a painting or two of garden produce would go very well around the house to add a unique and deeply personal accent to the home environment. Perhaps a new painting in the kitchen or dining room areas, even the downstairs toilet where any keen gardener spends time trying to get the dirt out from underneath the fingernails… and musing on the next great cultivating adventure.

A little about the process behind my series of work “grounded Fruits and flying veggies”

Inspiration comes at the oddest of times, and I was inspired to focus on this subject while walking around the Three Counties Autumn Harvest Festival competition tent in Malvern Worcestershire. The event is one of the regional highlights of the year. Walking around the huge tent inspired me to consider how I felt about fruit and vegetables. I was surprised by the intensity of focus that the people around me awarded to the humble produce. And the exhibits were staggering in size and variety.

Flying Veggies 

In ‘grounded fruits and flying veggies,’ a series of ink and acrylic on canvas paintings, I depict root vegetables that have been picked for cooking and are bursting with life in the dark of a storage cupboard. The “Trio of Carrots“, an acrylic painting on canvas, has a wonderful vivid dimension with an airy light blue background. The vegetables are lifted high from the ground they were grown in. Vegetables include:

• Potato
• Carrot
• Onion

Grounded Fruit

In contrast, I also paint fruits picked from my garden, fresh and responsive to the light, showing the colours of the turning of the seasons. Fruit such as:

• Pear 
• Quince

The vegetables float in mid-air with no shadows in the background is a nod to certain famous abstract painting styles. There are ink splashes to create a dramatic effect. The fruits, in contrast, are grounded with ink splashes creating depth. The fruits are fallen from the tree and lofty heights of their place of growth.

In creating these paintings, first I draw the fruit and vegetable models directly onto the canvas. Then, I add the ink splashes and move them around, smudging and blotting as needed. When I have a trio of vegetables, I paint one piece until complete and then another with a mini-series appearing on the canvas over time. I work methodically and start each session by spraying the vegetables with water to establish a connection, keeping them fresh, and encouraging growth.

An artist’s meditation on our relationship with Fruit and Vegetables

This series is a meditation on our codependence with fruit and vegetables to sustain life. It started with my curiosity about a potato found in the cupboard. The sprouting potato has a soft and squidgy texture with a translucent quality, developing deep wrinkles as its energy goes into creating shoots and roots. As these living things undergo these changes, we can reflect on the circular nature of life and death.

Paintings are in high pigment professional acrylic paint and archival non-fade waterproof ink on canvas. 

The Collection

Take a deeper look at the collection on the Porfolio page.