1) You are the first fine artist on a page that is usually filled with masters of the art of making food and wine. Do you have a strong appreciation of these other art forms?

Yes, there are similarities in the process of creating food and wine and creating art. As paintings will describe and evoke through visual elements, some dishes will attempt to evoke moods or places through flavour, taste and texture.

2) Please give our food and wine fanatics some background to your career as an artist/painter?

I am a self-taught artist, a painter. I spent a bit of time restoring antiquities and, since then, have been a full time artist living and working in Cape Town.

3) What are you working on currently?

Landscapes in enamel and resin. There is a lot of process involved in making these new paintings – resin layers are built up in the studio and the paintings move from indoors to outdoors as they get made. Outdoor light is very different to studio light so I have been making my recent paintings outdoors in different settings. I make them in part in the studio then mix the layers of enamel colour in different outdoor settings and at different times of day. The paintings are pretty big so they have to get taken to whatever outdoor setting I am going to by bakkie and then set up on trestles. There is something about being outdoors mixing paint that creates colour combinations that one wouldn’t normally get in the studio.

4) Fine art and great wines are often found in the same exclusive settings.

Is this something that concerns you? It can be an experience for the senses to have the different art forms combined although to really look at art in a gallery setting is best for me.

5) What chef’s dishes are visually inspiring to you?

I find it interesting to talk to chefs and winemakers and to understand the process of creation behind food and wine. The way in which a chef combines flavours can be similar to a painter mixing colours, finding the right combinations that sing together… and the struggle that goes with creating these combinations and coming up with new ideas.

6) Favourite restaurant and wine?

Carne, I like simple food – meat and veg.

7) How does food enrich your life?

I can’t think how if affects it, but I am sure a world without amazing tastes and flavours would be pretty awful.

8) When, where and what is your next exhibition?

A group painting show at What if the World gallery, Woodstock in July with new landscapes.

9) Braaier of chops and wors or haute cuisine chef at home?

Chops and wors… maybe a bowl of mussels.

10) Last time you visited a wine estate?

Groot Constantia, this month.

11) Chefs have to be fine craftsmen when they create some of their intricate dishes. Tell us about the process of creating one of your enamel pieces?

The paintings are built up in layers, with a kind of skeleton of texture and color that changes as each new layer is applied and as one layer of colour reacts to the one above. Often you have to be planning quite far ahead. But while one plans with each new layer, things change and the outcome is frequently different from what one expects.

12) Do you ever work in an absinthe haze? Are you partial to a tot of something?

More like a turpentine haze in the studio…

13) What book are you currently reading?

‘Moby Dick’ and online ‘Letters of note’ (www.lettersofnote.com/)

15) Individual interpretations of wine and art can differ? How do you react to other’s opinions of your work?

You can’t worry too much about what other people think – you have to just have confidence in your own vision. Although frequently the viewers point of view and literally their presence, is an important part of a lot of my reflective paintings.

16) Who or what inspires you at the moment?

My Partner, Kirsty and daughter, Jemima

www.petereastman.com