A year or so ago I planted a piece of sprouting ginger in a pot, just to see. It didn’t flower and eventually after persistently watering it, the leaves just died off. I decided to plant something else in the pot and to my utter joy, I found big tubers laying just beneath the surface. I plucked out a whole bunch, all blond and fresh and intertwined. As my brother said, “you can just peel the skin right off”. The piece in this painting was the most beautiful one of the lot.

I set the tuber up as a still life, with strong lighting, in my studio and chose the oil colours for my palette. I tried tirelessly to capture the ginger’s beauty and luminosity, like a reclining nude on a red velvet drape. However the look I was after just evaded me. It wasn’t until I let the painting dry right out and hung it on my kitchen wall, did the painting come alive and my husband said, “Your not selling that one”. I wanted to show it to you because we really are enjoying it as a kitchen piece, as it was intended to be.