Annie Morris & Idris Khan at Pitzhanger Manor: ‘Painful moments make the best work’

Nancy Durrant, The Standard, 4 October 2023

Walking between the interlinked studios of artist couple Annie Morris and Idris Khan is like treading the line between two worlds – lightly perfumed with garlic. Separated by a kitchen in which, on the day I visit, a couple of assistants are beavering away (one is sewing a large piece of fabric, the other is cooking up something heavenly for everyone’s lunch), they could not be more different.

 

Morris’s space, which looks out through big glass doors onto a quiet Stoke Newington street, is a literal forest of tall sculptures, towering stacks of rough-textured balls in different sizes, saturated with vivid pigments. There is miscellaneous art stuff on the coffee table in the corner, and a few bits of paper scattered around the edges of the floor – it is cheerful chaos, at least to the untrained eye.