“Living with” and Transformation: A Studio Visit with Artist Carolina Khouri by Corrina Eastwood

We continue with our studio visits of up and coming and established talented artist now, with a visit to the live/work space of painter Carolina Khouri.

Carolina is based in the Tottenham warehouse district very near to Sweet HQ. It was a pleasure for me to visit Overbury Rd this week, all in a completely sober state! Over the past ten plus years I have hung out at many of the warehouses in the district at parties and arty gatherings. There has been a turn over in my time of friends and art acquaintances that have lived and worked, and then moved on from the interestingly eclectic and ramshackle spaces of the warehouses that line one side of the road.

I have lived near by for long enough to see walls built, kitchens added, spaces reconfigured and re realised for next generations, and of course the cross over and departure of old friends, new friends and then friends of friends! My warehouse living days were done in Dalston, long before it became too expensive to even rent a flat, let alone a space to work and live too.

Carolina and I swap notes on the pros and cons of communal living with other creative’s as she welcomes me into the most amazing of living spaces. Half Lebanese half Polish, Carolina has lived in the UK for 15 years, and in the warehouses of Overbury for ten of those years. She recollects the building of the space to create what it is now, and the difficulties of keeping industrial properties warm! The communal living and kitchen space feels very warm to me, as is the welcome. I’m immediately feeling at home, understood and inspired. “I didn’t move to Britain, I moved to London” Carolina comments, and it feels to me she represents that which is so great about our city and the pockets of creative communities that hide out here. To me she feels to have not only found her London but also been very pro active in creating it. We agree to avoid talking about the “B word” (Brexit) too much. But of course even the avoiding of politics leaves us with the unavoidable issue of values. 

Art and creative living appears to have been the language she has used to find and also manifest what she has needed, and we talk about her use of and fascination with colour in her practice, and of her ongoing process of trying to “learn the language of colour”. She explores with me the individuality of meaning found and expressed through different colours, both personally and culturally and I am then struck by wanting to consider her relationships to others and audience as an impact on her practice further. She goes on to explain that her studio space is on the path through the warehouses shared workspace, into the living space.

She says she enjoys this and invites feedback on her paintings from her housemates and guests as they pass through. She speaks of the easy way in which this interaction influences her creations yet not explicitly or definitively. This seems to parallel her explanations concerning the way she uses the altering space and light to “live with” her paintings for a long time in between her process of direct making. This “living with” feels to directly link to Carolinas relationship to ideas of transformation in her work, which I can feel embodied in her painting, when we move into her studio to view them.

From the Landscape of My Mind Series

This “transformation of feelings” that she describes as an aim in her practice and as being an antidote to the very idea that anyone would want to “buy her problems”, is very present in the aesthetic of her current work and her striking, bold and unapologetic use of colour. There is something of the somatic in viewing her large scale paintings and I find myself thinking again of this relationship of self and others as I fall into the rich depth of her resin pieces, while also being brought back by the feedback of the viewer that they create in their reflective surfaces.

From the Landscape of My Mind Series

Carolina and I spend effortless time together looking at her current and then past creations. We do this while talking about life and art and how one responds to the other. We both speak of our privilege in being able to do what we do. Of the struggles we have faced but the “blessings” that we have been granted.

From The Landscape of My Mind Series

Carolina speaks of the generous amounts of money sales of her works have raised for auctions for charities close to her heart. This all feels to be ‘held lightly’ by her in relation to her practice but for me feels so relevant and embodied in the pieces that I am very privileged to view.

Street Archeology Series

 

Street Archeology Series

I end my visit feeling energised and inspired but in a way that is unusual for me. In an instagramable world of endless lattes and side hustles, Carolina seems to really embody the idea that creativity does not always benefit from existing so demandingly closely to productivity. That we could all benefit more from exploring a greater sense of “living with”, to create depth and richness of both our art and experiences.