WORDS BY GEORGINA LUCAS
“I sort of got bored with it,” says interiors artist Penny Graham of her shift from fashion journalist to artist in the 1980s. But when she first pursued painting, her work was dismissed by Wimbledon art school – “I showed them some things I’d done,” she says – “and they said don't show us that bourgeois crap, and what a lot of possessions your friends have! So that rather put me in my place.
Instead she took an evening class, and painted friend’s houses. Painting is in Penny’s blood – one corner exhibits a screen painted by her great grandmother, Golly – “she was one of those Victorian ladies that painted,” she says, with customary modesty. She cites Bonnard as an inspiration, and indeed, there’s a similar intimacy in Penny’s work – a glimpse into a life, a sense of the feeling within a space. Recognition came via word of mouth, and today she’s worked with a roster of loved and established brands including Veere Grenney, Colefax and Fowler and Tino Zervudachi.
We meet at her flat in Notting Hill, which is a sort of visual autobiography, a treasure trove tracing an artistic life, very well lived. Penny is Notting Hill old guard – she moved here in 1976, when the area was a thriving creative hub. There’s sense she’s woven into the tapestry of the area, surrounded by friends. A glance round her home immediately illustrates her impeccable eye for both colour and setting. It’s no surprise that the space she inhabits, like the rooms she paints, return to the true meaning of home – warm, comfortable, lived in – places intended to be inhabited, rather than photographed.
Here, design considerations are often practical, a stack of books to raise an anglepoise lamp, a roll of loved fabric that acts as a blind, a rug to cover a hole, but the result is truly beautiful. That impeccable eye helps, as does all the “bourgeois crap”, and friends like Nicky Haslam, to advise her – over lunch, naturally – on details like the precise shade of grey to paint her cornice.
Chiming with a move away from fast interiors, Penny’s work embodies the idea that we shouldn't tear everything down and start from scratch. The confines of an existing room – original features, cherished furniture, seemingly awkward corners – are liberating rather than constraining. “I like mixing old and new things,” she says, “trying not to match things too much is a nice way of making a space feel natural.” Her approach echoes Alice B Davies’s perspective that pieces with design integrity, which you love, will always work together, regardless of era, palette, style.
Penny and her approach to documenting homes with real soul feels particularly pertinent, not to mention refreshing, in an era which endlessly streams online interiors ‘for content’. Reusing and repurposing may have become sustainability buzz words, but in a visual sense, they add texture, personality, narrative. Penny’s work seems to call into question the very meaning of luxury. In a world where so much is fleeting, instant, passing, what could be more luxurious than Penny and her brushes immortalising an unremarkable moment in one’s sitting room?
To time with her first solo exhibition at The Tabernacle in Notting Hill, Penny launches an exclusive room design with Salon featuring a characteristically eclectic mix of pieces from a selection of UK based makers and collectors.
Penny Graham at The Tabernacle in Notting Hill (Tabernacle, Powis Sq, Sep 29th - Oct 3rd).