Nicola Bennett
Nicola is an abstract painter based at Lake Rotoiti. Her work is about the pleasure and energy that comes from sensory knowledge. For Nicola, cooking and painting share many similarities. She looks to the language of food for inspiration in the composition of her paintings: just as the chef layers in all the ranges of taste, colour and textures, so Nicola layers veils of paint. The suggestive power of colour and how it relates to flavour is particularly important in her work. She wants the viewer to eat with the eyes, to see what the mouth feels.