Tessa Baker I paint and I cook. I love to paint and I love to cook. I am a trained chef and have worked thus professionally for thirty years. As a child and a young teenager my only desire was to paint, by the time I was in my late teens I was seriously torn between the two, I had finished my apprenticeship as a chef and had also spent a few years studying Fine Art. Catering won, partly due to finances and partly due to my confusion and misunderstanding of my own art, I was already painting abstracts, but felt incapable of explaining my art to anyone least of all myself. I felt inadequate.

My work as a chef has taken me to a lot of wonderful places that I may never have visited, had I not chosen that path. I worked on sailing boats for seven years, and have sailed nine Atlantic crossings, gone through the Panama Canal to the Pacific and onto the Galapagos, where the loneliest Giant Tortoise in the world lives, that sad giants name is George. I swam with seals, had close encounters with sharks, and pilot whales and swam with turtles in the mangroves. We went deep sea diving and came nose to nose with some glorious tropical fish, whose colours simply amaze.

The ocean infinite and beautiful, I would stare for eternities into the horizon and beyond. The curve of the planet and the meeting of the sky and sea, glorious sunrises and sunsets, the full moons peaceful elegance as she leaves a trail of soft white light on the water. I can understand why people worship both the sun and moon. I discovered new tastes herbs and spices, ways of cooking and over the years I have developed a keen sense of what will enhance the flavour of a dish and how to make it look tempting and delicious.

Twelve years ago I moved on land, the longing to paint was overwhelming, and I became a freelance chef, here in the South of France. I have reconciled the early fight with of food versus art and I am now admire and respect both in their own right. I continue to cook and to paint. I love playing with the magic of colour on canvas. I love playing with the magic of flavour in food.

I am in awe of Nature, here in the Alpine woods near to where I live there is an abundance of stunning insects, wild flowers and butterflies. The colours and the patterns of Nature are endless and astonishing and never cease to delight me and it does not surprise me how we humans can create so much beauty, after all we don’t have to look far.

My paintings for me, are the horizons my eyes have lingered and dwelled on, the windows I have looked through and the nature that I am part of. Perhaps my art and my food are for me a celebration of nature and of my senses.

My blogs :
The Artist's Diary
Eclectic Blog