MY LIFE, MY STYLE
At home in London with the artist Annie Morris
Iget a strange feeling of familiarity when I arrive at Annie Morris’ Georgian townhouse in north London, and she welcomes me into a living-room filled with countless paintings, sculptures and illustrations. Since 2010, the house has belonged to Annie and her husband Idris Khan, two of Britain’s most successful contemporary artists, and their young children, Maude and Jago. ‘We actually renovated it using the interiors of Charleston as inspiration,’ she says. ‘I visited the property when I was a little girl and was mesmerised by the drawings all over its walls, fireplaces and window sills.’
The Bloomsbury Group would certainly approve of the scene. In one corner is a pair of bespoke Ikea sofas, whose cushions have been embroidered with her whimsical sketches. ‘I’ve made lots of additional covers that can be mixed and matched – I’m constantly changing it,’ she says. There’s a Raqib Shaw painting above the mantelpiece, a huge photographic work by Khan in the hallway, and one of Morris’ Stack sculptures, plaster
spheres in vivid hues of ultramarine, viridian and ochre arranged in a totem, most of which, she tells me, are currently assembled across the Atlantic for her first solo show with the Timothy Taylor gallery in New York. ‘We’ve also got this Tal R figure that Victoria Miro gave to us as a wedding present, and the kids are great with it – when they have friends over I hear them say, “Don’t touch the art please!”’
Annie’s own childhood was spent in Chelsea, and she grew up surrounded by creativity. ‘My mum was an interior decorator and her life was making beautiful rooms,’ she says. ‘I remember being ushered around a lot of antiques markets.’ Annie’s desire to be an artist emerged when she was a student at Westminster School. ‘I was always talking in lessons and throwing notes at people, you know, “disruptive”, but when it came to art class I was completely focused. Thankfully, my parents weren’t strict about me staying up late painting and drawing in my room, and they allowed me to choose my own path.’
After studying at Central Saint Martins, she moved to Paris in 1997 to attend the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, under the tutelage of the Italian sculptor Giuseppe Penone. ‘Whenever I go back to Paris there’s a part of me that feels so happy and proud – it’s a magical place,’ she says. In 2003, after illustrating her friend Sophie Dahl’s first book, The Man with the Dancing Eyes, she became a household name, and three years later she was commissioned by Christopher Bailey, then the creative director of Burberry, to make a dress using her painted clothes pegs. ‘I remember arriving at their smart offices with seven suitcases of pegs and tipping them out in their thousands all over the floor,’ she says, smiling. ‘Kind of mad, but it was really fun.’
‘ W hen the kids have friends over, I hear them say, “Don’t touch the art please!”’
More recently, the American architect Peter Marino asked her to contribute to Louis Vuitton’s flagship store on Place Vendôme, and a series of her tapestries were hung in the Ned hotel in London. ‘I think my love of fashion goes back to when I was at the Beaux-Arts and we would sneak into the building, hide upstairs and secretly watch the shows from the balcony,’ she says.
Last year saw her first joint exhibition with her husband at Galerie Isa in Mumbai. ‘He’s been such an amazing influence on me,’ she says. ‘I used to be much messier and would always trample drawings and spill coffee on them, but he is very respectful of work and good at treating things with care.’ They met through a mutual friend and following a whirlwind romance, moved in together after a matter of weeks – by the third month they were engaged. ‘I was someone who never committed to anything, so that was unlike me,’ she says. ‘I find decision-making extremely hard, I need endless options. In fact, my sculptures are made up of things that get assembled together, so I can always change them. But with Idris, the decision was quick.’
The choice to purchase the house might also seem swift, considering it didn’t have any electricity when they moved in and the only bathroom was buried deep in the basement. ‘It was completely crazy, we lived in one room on the top floor for quite a while,’ she says. Today, one of her favourite spaces is the kitchen, whose ceiling, door and floor are stripped back to the 18thcentury wood, and which comes complete with a reclaimed Aga, and a fireplace picked up in France. The vibrant yellow colour on the walls, originally inspired by Claude Monet’s house in Giverny, comes from a sample that Annie’s mother had kept from a previous project: ‘It’s amazing that after all those years they can take a chip and create a whole gallon of paint based on that one tiny bit.’
Despite her home’s colourful allure, she admits her own aesthetic is rather more pared down. ‘I always wear the same thing – jeans and a James Perse T-shirt,’ she says.
‘At the moment I’m really into these Levi’s that I bought from Alex Eagle’s boutique, the Store. In some ways I find it less stressful than choosing what to wear every day.’ By night, she adds to her uniform with pieces from Miu Miu, Isabel Marant and Valentino, and she has an incredible haul of vintage looks from Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen, handed down by her mother. ‘But really I’m guilty of going back to the same thing again and again,’ she says. ‘It’s aboutfinding what you love and living in it.’