My work and life-long interests have always been art and food. My twenties were spent working for the flamboyant chef, Keith Floyd and at a bustling Italian Cafe in Sydney called Bar Contessa. Teaching Dad to Cook Flapjack, my debut cookbook, was published in 2010.

I studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art in Somerset House in London and as both an undergraduate and post graduate was fortunate to have frequent and intimate encounters with 2000 years of masterpieces in art, architecture and sculpture. The works I was particularly drawn to often had the fascinating dual aspect of surface and story. It was the heavily encrusted paintings of Giacometti in post war Paris that spoke to me of existentialism, the Spanish works on reclaimed doors and arte povera from the Spanish civil war, and the meditative qualities of Rothko’s colour fields that spoke to me.

I have been fascinated for decades by the aspect of surface. This is interesting to me because it is at once an initial experience, but then gives way to an enmeshment of visual stories, that unfold. Multiple layers of colour, line, form and patination. both veil and reveal previous thoughts and suggestions.

The process of creating a painting starts with the most exquisite surface to work on. In my riverside studio I select from conservation grade linen canvas, a deep wooden panel or clayboard with plaster.

Still-lifes are inspired by seductive seasonal produce: the first deep velvety figs, rose-coloured garlic, mint flowers, blackcurranty dark hellebores, perfumed quinces in the winter, rare snowdrops, speckled eggs and hand made ceramics.

The landscapes are the result of seeing a distinctive feature, ancient field boundaries, a tangled band of gorse bordering the top of a field; a group of sculptural trees on the Moor standing out against the low mist.

They are rooted in the coastal and Moorland landscape of Devon.