About Tessa Baker

Born in London to creative parents, my father an actor and my mother a film and theatre designer. I would help her with the miniature sets and follow the whole process from seed to conception. My love of art began.

At twelve, Pollock, Rodin, Brigit Riley, Hoffman and Rothko – shone bright in my imagination. Art school beckoned I went to the Chelsea School of Art and studied fine arts. but it wasn’t until years and many adventures later that I stopped to paint professionally.

Excitement-filled my veins, life’s inspirations rushed through me and me through it. I immersed myself in my art. I worked with my friend Richard Winkworth as his apprentice both in France and in London, a wonderful artist whom I admire greatly and learned so much from. I also went to the Slade Summer School for three months. I am constantly learning and taking art classes I hope my learning and improving will be endless.

I moved back to France to a luminous apartment in Valbonne and painted constantly. Exhibitions followed and soon I was selling my work.

Like the weather I am a seasonal painter. The winter months find me in my studio and with the first breath of Spring you will find me painting ‘en plein air’.

January sings out with almond blossom, swiftly chasing the bright yellow mimosa; tulips and iris’s come in hot pursuit. There is the bright green of the new growth in the vineyards and the blossom on all the fruit trees. One delight after another!

With May come the glorious red fields of poppies that stake their claim on the land. In June the purple of the lavender fields mingle sweetly with the delicate petals of the poppies. The perpetual hum of bees in harmonious ecstasy fill the scented summer air.

Then there’s the heat, the deep green of summer, the turquoise of the lakes, the vibrant dance of the dragonflies that court in the fresh mountain streams. Jolly boatmen cast delicate shadows as they tread softly on the water’s edge. There is so much inspiration here for my work as an artist.

Late September thrills me and fills me with awe and love, the ‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’, the grapes plump and ready to pick, the figs begging to be made into burgundy-coloured jam. In the vineyards the flaming, blazing beautiful hues of autumn entrance me, implore and invite me to go and paint them. Who could resist such glorious temptation. What bliss then to sit and paint in my own garden of joy.