A Kent artist with Lithuanian roots is set to feature on one of Britain’s most watched television shows.
Vilte Fuller, 29, from Longfield, will feature in this year’s MasterChef on BBC One where she showcases some Eastern European cooking.
Vilte Fuller from Longfield will be on MasterChef tonight
The 29-year-old, who went to Mayfield Grammar school in Gravesend, applied to take part in the show after watching an episode alone at home one evening.
“I had a glass of vino, I kind of drunkenly applied and made the video, and then pretty much immediately got a call back,” she said.
At first Vilte says she kept declining their calls, too nervous to commit.
It was only when her newlywed husband Dan stepped in and urged her to take the chance that she called back to participate.
The couple married just two weeks ago.
“He was like, you need to take this, stop being a baby,” she added.
Vilte Fuller with her art and beloved cat Spooky
Vilte loves food and cooking, but her main dream is to earn a MasterChef apron, awarded to those who make it through the first round and secure their place in the competition — anything else would simply be a bonus, she says.
Once on set in Birmingham, where the show is filmed, the competition felt far less intimidating than she had expected.
“Honestly, I had the best time. Everyone was really nice. It wasn’t that scary,” she said.
She particularly welcomed the show’s two new female judges, Irish chef Anna Haugh and restaurant critic Grace Dent, who stepped in to replace long-standing hosts Gregg Wallace and John Torode following their departures from the show.
“I work a lot better if I am around women, so for me personally, I loved the fact that it was two female judges,” she said.
Food and art have always been intertwined for Vilte.
Vilte Fuller was born to a Lithuanian mother and raised in Kent by her British stepfather
Born to a Lithuanian mother and raised in Kent by her British stepfather, she grew up between two cultures — and both have shaped her work ever since.
“I’m very proud to be Lithuanian, but I think my mentality is probably more British,” she said.
“I feel both. I feel very stuck in between.”
That dual identity runs through everything she creates as an artist.
“A lot of my artwork was based on sort of Slavic Baltic cuisine — in paintings I would use it a lot as a motif,” she said.
“In the UK there are two million Eastern European people, but the culture isn’t necessarily presented in the most elevated way,” she said.
“It’s kind of known as meat and potatoes — it’s never presented in a finesse way, which it does have.”
After graduating from the Glasgow School of Art, her painting career started slowly, until lockdown gave her the time to paint and social media gave her the audience.
She has since gone on to exhibit internationally, with solo shows at Mou Projects in Hong Kong, Superzoom in Paris and Polina Berlin Gallery in New York, as well as group exhibitions at Christie’s and Hannah Barry Gallery in London, Coulisse Galerie in Stockholm and Galerie Hussenot in Paris.
Her work examines the connections between technology, the human form and workplace culture.
Her style draws on horror cinema — unsettling and darkly comic in equal measure.
“None of it’s really that serious. It’s kind of in jest — like watching a comedy horror,” she said.
MasterChef will air on BBC One tonight (May 4) at 8pm and on iPlayer