Strawberry Tea
60x80x4cm
Framed size 62x82x6.8cm
 
This painting is part of a new series  of still life created for my solo show " A Sense of Self"
Objects preserve a wealth of significant emotion and connection, serving as physical embodiments of identity. Their narratives project a sense of self while sharing stories of lives lived in other places and times. They hold a physical representation of experience, speaking of familial ties and the story of who we were, who we are, and where we have been.
I love blue which is clear in the majority of my paintings so a move to red was a radical step. My daughter was gifted a strawberry teapot and I found her a strawberry jug to go with it. 
The flowers in the jug are Ixora, grown in our garden. My husband had some clients who were building a beach house in Bermuda. They bought a home on South Shore in Tucker's Town and demolished it. We salvaged beautiful old doors and hardware from the home before the wreckers arrived. I also snaffled a few plants from the garden and the Ixora was one of them. It always reminds me of the Bordens and "Full Fathom Five".
I set up this still life in a corner of the kitchen. We have recycled Mexican tiles as a backsplash behind our stove and black granite counter in our kitchen it was an interesting and challenging set-up.
I was gifted the tiles as part of 2 full palettes which a primary school Mum gave me. She ran an imported tile business and these were seconds. She had been supplying them to mosaic artists but it had become onerous so she gave them to me. I was teaching mosaic classes with kids at the time and I wasn't expecting quite so many tiles. We shifted them down to my studio and then shifted them many times around the studio over the years. Many were used in mosaic projects and I gave many boxes away, some for a pizza oven project. The final blue and white tiles ended up on our kitchen wall and they were perfect for a still-life background.