Artist duo dabbles in colour in new show
London-based Idris Khan and Annie Morris are presenting works around the colour blue.
The colour blue is the focus of a new exhibition in Mumbai, featuring work by London-based artist duo Idris Khan and Annie Morris. The selected works make up the inaugural exhibition of Galerie Isa’s new space in Fort.
Khan is showing six works — oil paintings, overlaid photographs and a large glass work, the biggest he’s made, mounted on a wall of the gallery. This will be complemented by nine sculptural works of line and spherical forms by Morris, placed in the centre.
“Over the past year I have been obsessed with different hues of blue,” say Khan. “In art, the colour has an instant connection with emotion, and evokes both sadness and has its moments for happiness. For me though, it’s the closest colour to the sublime, better than black and white.”
The couple share side by side studios and are married, but as artists, they have developed their own styles and practices. This comes out in the works on display. While Khan’s layering process is focused on the intensity of the colour across various media, Morris’s sculptures are an interplay of colours, in which blue features sometimes as the star and at times as a complement to the installation.
The artists don’t usually collaborate on work, but they admit that they can’t help but influence each other. They’ve only collaborated on one show in the past, in Mumbai last year.
“It was a nice feeling because we never thought our work could work in the same space. But the last time we were here it was so great, we thought maybe the only place we should show together is India,” says Khan.