Sophie Smallhorn print exhibition, London
Colour artist Sophie Smallhorn may be trained as a designer and be at ease collaborating with architects on major public projects like London's Olympic Stadium (for which she served as colour consultant) but she is most in her element when messing about in her studio, 'playing with paint and leading through ideas very quickly'. Happily then, her latest series - on show at London's Great Western Studios, gave her time to indulge. 'Notes on colour and form' saw Smallhorn get back to basics for a spell of 'getting paint under my fingernails'.
For the project, Smallhorn embarked on what she calls 'an illustrated thought process', making purely abstract colour decisions on 200 identical sheets of paper. Some of the results simply focus on one solid, saturated colour, while one of the more complex prints employs 15. And, of the 100 one-off prints that made the cut into the show, none took more than a day to create.
The untitled works have undeniable shades of Op Art, echoing works by the likes of Bridget Riley and Donald Judd, but Smallhorn says her colour decisions are purely intuitive, unguided by trends. 'They're not all that predictable,' she says, 'and some are quite uncomfortable and ugly. You've got to have some comfortable and some less comfortable tones in a composition, to upset the balance a bit.'
Presciently, her tendency towards yellows, oranges and reds have accompanied today's fashion for sunnier colours - such as the covetted tableware she designed in collaboration with Sebastian Bergne (see W*151). Yet, while one journalist has called her a 'colour alchemist', Smallhorn would say there's nothing magical about her palette. 'It's the basis of everything I do.'
Having recently finished an exterior mural on a home in Basel and now taken on a glass-canopy project for a building in Victoria, Smallhorn is already feeling nostalgic for that brief stint in the studio this summer. 'I will miss the freedom of the past six months,' she says. But, she must find some solace in the fact that, literally, much bigger things lay ahead.
ADDRESS
The Project Space
Great Western Studios
65 Alfred Road
London
W2 5EU
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
-
Inside Valentino’s glamorous new Sloane Street store, inspired by the art of haute couture
The latest in Valentino’s ‘The New Maison’ store concept opens on London’s Sloane Street this week, offering an enveloping marble and carpet-clad space of ‘intimacy and uniqueness’
By Jack Moss Published
-
Aesop’s Salone del Mobile 2024 installations in Milan are multisensory experiences
Aesop has partnered with Salone del Mobile to launch a series of installations across Milan, tapping into sight, touch, taste, and scent
By Hannah Tindle Published
-
Dial into the Boring Phone and more smartphone alternatives
From the deliberately dull new Boring Phone to Honor’s latest hook-up with Porsche, a host of new devices that do the phone thing slightly differently
By Jonathan Bell Published