Pepper adds spice to first ever festival

3:02pm Thursday 2nd October 2008

A local artist will be exhibiting her paintings this month as part of the first ever Woodford Festival.

Transexual Margaret Pepper, 64, formerly known as Maurice, will be displaying her works in a studio at her home, 2 Grosvenor Gardens, Woodford Green, from 1pm to 5pm.

Margaret never had any background in art, having never been to art college or had any training.

She said: “I first started painting in the hot summer of 1976, I was going through a bad time, my business had failed as there had been a bit of a slump, much like there is now and shortly after that my mother died.

“My father-in-law was a keen amateur artist, so I bought myself an easel and some oil paints and went and joined him.”

“The whole thing then exploded, in the first year I did about 90 pictures.”

Margaret credits greats like Constable, Turner and Caravaggio as some of her influences as well as the famous ‘Alchemist’ painting by David Teniers the Younger.

She said:”It’s so brilliantly painted that you can smell the room.”

This is the fourth time this year that Margaret’s works have been on display, after exhibitions at the Blue Room Cafe, the Alphabet Bar, both in Soho, and Novas in Camden Town.

Margaret is not nervous in the slightest about the upcoming exhibition.

She said:”I’m really looking forward to seeing what everyone thinks.”

Of the current artists, Margaret cannot get her head around English artist Damien Hirst.

“I can’t believe that people have paid so much money for such rubbish, unbelievable,” she added.