In Germany, there is a little witch who belongs in the kitchen.
The Küchenhexe is traditionally a small witch figure or doll that hangs in the kitchen. She is not a frightening witch, but a familiar household figure - a little bit mischievous, a little bit magical, and often thought of as a good-luck charm for the kitchen.
I grew up with this idea of the Küchenhexe: the little witch watching over the place where food is prepared, where something is always cooking, and where everyday life happens.
For me, she became more than a decoration.
I began imagining what her kitchen might look like when nobody is watching.
There are vegetables waiting to be chopped, fruit gathered from the garden, herbs hanging to dry, pots on the stove and something wonderful baking in the oven. A cat might have found the warmest spot. A mouse may be looking for crumbs. A crow might have brought something it shouldn't have.
Nothing has to be extraordinary.
That is where the magic lives.
The Küchenhexe series is my imagined world of this kitchen - the food, the animals, the herbs, the cooking and all the little moments that happen between them.
Some paintings are quiet still lifes. Others show more of the mysterious, slightly witchy side of the kitchen.
Together, they tell the story of a kitchen where ordinary things are never quite as ordinary as they seem.
Die Küchenhexe - The Kitchen Witch
The Küchenhexe series is my interpretation of that world: the food, the animals, the herbs, the cooking and the little mysteries of an old kitchen.
Each piece in the series is a one-of-a-kind original oil painting, framed in a floating frame that I build myself.
There are no prints of the Küchenhexe paintings.
Each painting is meant to be its own little glimpse into her kitchen - one moment that cannot be reproduced exactly.
Orange
Lemon
The orange was the last one left.
Round, bright, and completely unremarkable.
Until the peel was opened.
Then the whole kitchen changed.
For a little while, winter didn't seem quite so long.
The lemon had been sitting on the windowsill for three days.
Nobody had used it.
Nobody moved it.
Still, every morning, the kitchen smelled faintly of its sharp, clean brightness.
Perhaps it was doing exactly what it was meant to do.
Fig
It was small enough to overlook.
Bright enough not to.
One little red pepper, sitting quietly among the ordinary things in the kitchen.
Nobody knew who had left it there.
Nobody moved it.
Nobody remembered buying the figs.
They appeared one morning in a little basket, soft and heavy, their skins split just enough to show the sweetness inside.
There were seven.
By evening, there were six.
Nobody confessed.
Red Hot Pepper
The avocado was ready.
Perfectly soft beneath its rough skin.
Inside, there was a seed almost too large for the fruit that carried it.
It was saved instead of thrown away.
Somewhere, sometime, a tree may begin with something that looked like a stone.
Avocado
Aubergine - Eggplant
It was almost black.
Not the soft black of shadow, but the deep purple that seems to hold onto the light.
It had an odd presence about it.
Nothing frightening.
Nothing you could explain.
Some vegetables simply have more secrets than others.
Plums
The plums were supposed to become a pie.
That was before someone tasted the first one.
Then another.
Then another.
By the time the oven was hot, there were only three left.
The pie was cancelled.
The plums were not.
8"x 8" original oil painting, framed
8"x 8" original oil painting, framed
8"x 8" original oil painting, framed
8"x 8" original oil painting, framed
8"x 8" original oil painting, framed
8"x 8" original oil painting, framed
8"x 8" original oil painting, framed
