Florence Hutchings
Florence Hutchings
Dressing Room
New Paintings and Works on Paper
20 Cork Street
London W1S 3HL
+44 (0)20 7734 1732
info@redfern-gallery.com
redfern-gallery.com
Florence Hutchings in conversation with Rosie Osborne, March 2024
Tell us a little bit about where you grew up and the kind of atmospheres you were surrounded by.
So, I grew up in the Medway Towns in Kent. My dad’s a painter, so it was a very arty household with lots of art on the wall. He had a studio at home when we lived in Gillingham, so whenever I’d come home from school he’d be in the studio painting. I could always smell the oil paint. I grew up smelling it and I can now still smell it! My mum’s a picture editor for Take A Break magazine, so it was a household where it was normal for there to be art books everywhere and we talked about art a lot. But then I rebelled a bit against art and didn’t choose it as one of my subjects at school for GCSE. I ended up really regretting that. I found a Bonnard book in the library and just absolutely loved it and ended up taking art for A Level.
Would you ever watch your dad painting in his studio as a child?
As a really young child, my dad used to draw me and my sister a lot. He’d work in the kitchen sometimes and if we were doing our homework or watching TV, he’d draw us. We work a lot more together now, we’ll go to each other’s studios, and have a day drawing, or have a day looking at our work together.
Did you draw much as a child? How old were you when you became interested in colour and texture?
I always drew as a kid. I never remember not drawing. I remember there was one year where we gave up the TV as a family. My parents put the TV in the attic and they said to me and my sister that if we could
go the whole year without it, we would get a hundred pounds to spend at the end of the year. We were so determined to do it! I remember my dad saying that we’d just sit at the table and wouldn’t stop drawing, to the point where I think they nearly wanted the TV back! I probably stopped drawing between the ages of about 12 and 15, and then around 15/16 is when I found that Bonnard book and started drawing all the time again.
What was it about the Bonnard works in particular that made you reconnect with that creativity?
It was his drawings… the classic sketchy Bonnard drawings that are just beautiful. I’d hated art at school, especially in those early years where they try and make you realistically copy something, and I think I thought that that’s how it had to be. When I saw Bonnard’s work I thought, ‘no, that’s not what art has to be, there’s so much more to it’.
When did you start drawing everyday objects such as clothing rails and hat stands…?
I always drew whatever was around me, but when I was in my first year at Slade, I made a lot more abstract work. It was almost quite sculptural - things on the wall that were quite Rauschenberg, quite Phyllida Barlow influenced. I was making these really big abstract paintings and I just felt a bit lost - it lost its excitement. I realised I had these sketchbooks full of drawings, still lifes, interiors, and then I started to work from there. Ever since then, that’s a subject I’ve dealt with in my paintings.
What keeps you fascinated by the everyday objects that you paint?
I love to repeat a subject matter, and I remember when I first did my clothes rail painting at the Slade, it was in my third year… it was one of the paintings that got exhibited at Saatchi Gallery. I had a tutorial with Denzil Forrester, and he said to me, ‘don’t feel afraid to make a hundred paintings of this subject’ - he said he’d spent his whole life making nightclub paintings. That just blew my mind, like it shouldn’t just be one. You should be able to have fun - it’s not about what you’re painting, it’s about the approach to it, and as long as you keep that exciting, it can keep going and going. Since then, when I paint hat stands, I paint two of them and two clothes on a rail, and I like it when they feel like cousins… they’re related but they’re their own things at the same time.
It’s true - it’s like the repetition of one subject becomes a whole thing on its own.
Yes, completely, it’s all about the approach.
Did you collect anything as a child?
I’ve always collected postcards, so whenever I go to shows since I was a kid, I’d always buy postcards and stick them everywhere - they’re all around my studio. Now, I love collecting art books and I think they’re an accessible way to look at art, and a great way for people to study an artist, and feeling like you’ve seen a work without having seen it in the flesh.
Is there one postcard in your studio that you always go back to?
Yes! It’s this one - it’s got paint all over it, but its Nude by the Bath Tub by Bonnard from 1931. It was at the Bonnard show at the Tate. It has a pile of clothes on the floor and it was a big influence for this body of work. I love that with clothes and objects like that that are around you, and how this thing that’s so everyday becomes quite abstract, and you’re not really sure, until you know what it is, you don’t know what it is. I painted a ladder and
someone once thought it was a rollercoaster, and someone thought a jacket on a chair once was a mermaid’s tail, and Bonnard has that, you’re not instantly sure what it could be. I love how the bath blends into the background, it feels as though it never really ends. She almost looks like she’s floating. When I saw it in real life it really took my breath away.
Has there been anyone who has influenced the course of your life or given you a piece of advice that has really stayed with you?
I suppose my dad has been a massive impact on me. Having all of those chats with him as a kid, talking about art a lot… looking back at it now, it made me go to art school and have a confidence I suppose where I felt like I could talk in crits, and not feel too scared. Looking back, that was a really nice position to be in and meant I enjoyed my whole time at Slade. I love the work of Tal R, he’s been a big influence on me in recent years, and artists such as Gillian Ayres. Francis Bacon’s letters as well, and his interviews, there are a lot of passages in there that had a big impact on me.
How was your time at Slade?
It was great - it was amazing being in London, living in central London for that first year in halls. Being in this school where, from day one, we didn’t get assigned any projects, they just wanted us to be a practising artist and deal with that on our own, and that was great. I know at other art schools they give you projects and you’re maybe working in a way you don’t want to work, but Slade never did that, and I loved it from day one for that. When I visited art schools, Slade was the only one that smelt like paint! I loved that. It has such a long history of artists who have studied and taught there.
And you stayed in London after Slade?
Yes - Slade was four years and then me and my partner Danny stayed in London for about three years after. We had a studio in
Woolwich, and it was great, it was really big and meant we could work on a really good scale.
Which materials do you most enjoy working with?
Collage - I have such a love for collage. With painting, as much as I love oil paint, it gets to a point where you can’t work it anymore because it’s so wet, but I love the feeling with collage where you can cut a huge bit of paper and cover it instantly - if you don’t like it, you can rip it off and cover it again - it has more of an instant response. I love drawing with oil pastels too though, they hold a big place in my heart.
Do you remember a moment you had in front of a particular painting that will always stay with you?
Yes. It was Braque’s ‘The Studio (Vase before a Window)’ which was one of his paintings in the Met. It was when I went to New York for the first time, back in 2019. I remember just walking round the corner of this room in the gallery and there was this huge painting - Braque’s still life - of a table with a stool that was upturned, with a window in the background. I didn’t realise that they had it there and it just took my breath away. He’s a huge influence on me - I just couldn’t believe it. I was there really early in the morning as I was quite jet lagged, and no one else was there. It was just that perfect moment to see a perfect painting.
What was it about the colours?
It was his pinks and yellow ochres, which is a colour palette that I love. It just sang.
Have you always loved using pinks in your works?
Yeah, I love pink and red. I’ve always been drawn to them. I look at someone like Philip Guston who used so much pink, in all of
his work, and there’s nothing wrong with using that much of one colour throughout your work. Like Francis Bacon with orangesometimes colours are just meant to be with you. Pink is just that perfect punchy, neutral, juicy colour, that seems to speak to people. Everyone always says about the pink - I think it’s a very relatable colour that people enjoy.
Same as the clothes rail…
Exactly, it’s pushing that subject as far as you can, rather than delving into so many subjects and not push them.
What’s your experience of painting people?
I did one years ago of Danny playing the guitar on a bed, and that was one of the ones that was shown at Saatchi. I really like that because it obscured him with collage and I approached it in quite a fun way. I definitely want to go back to that. I did lots of life drawing at Slade; it hasn’t come into the paintings yet.
What kind of risks have you had to take in your work?
There’s been times when I’ve been making a particular body of work, like the tables and chairs, and a gallery has wanted me to do a show and maybe pushed for that kind of work. But if that’s not what is flowing, I do have to put my foot down and say, ‘I’m making what I’m making’. That can be difficult, because it’s a scary thing, to put your foot down with someone who’s been in the industry a long time.
Do you remember when you did your first flower painting? What do you enjoy about them?
I remember during a residency one summer, I ended up making a huge, 220×180cm vase of flowers - what I really enjoyed was this abstract expressionist scale, but with this thing that can be perceived as quite feminine.
The Clothes Rail (Red and Pink) 2023
Oil paint, oil bar and collage on canvas
180 × 115 cm
There was a brutality to it and I really enjoyed that. I suppose since then I’m always drawn back to it.
Painting larger canvases in general, do you find it a different experience when you’re painting large scale works to when you’re painting more intimate ones?
Yeah, I do really enjoy working big, but I think it’s so important to work small alongside it. What always ends up happening is I’m working a big canvas, and I’m finding I’m getting quite tight with it, and get quite stuck, and then I’ll work a small canvas and be so free and loose with it that I need to reapproach the big one how I’ve just approached something a hundredth of its size. That’s why I think that contrast is quite important.
How did the move to Margate affect your work?
We were getting pushed more and more out of London, and there was always this worry of your studio getting turned into flats. We really wanted to have studios at home. We found this house and it’s been great, it’s such a change in pace and it’s given me a different relationship with my studio. With my studio being at home, I can access it any time. Some of my favourite paintings in the Redfern for this show I made when I felt like I’d had a bit of a rubbish day, I hadn’t done much painting, I couldn’t figure anything out, and then maybe after dinner at 8/9 o’clock, I came back in the studio and spent 2/3 hours painting. I really went for it in a way that made the work so much more free and exciting. I don’t think I would have been able to do that if I had had to commute to the studio. It’s made me be able to work quite intensely and to leave and come back with fresh eyes.
I guess it allows for a spontaneity that otherwise you wouldn’t have had, rather than trying to fit it into a 9-5…You can tell by looking at the images that you were in such a flow…
Definitely. Before, when I’d get stuck in the studio all day, I’d end up working over things that I shouldn’t have worked over, and not coming back and reworking them in the right way. It has really changed my whole relationship with my work.
Is there one painting in particular from the show that was born out of a late night burst of inspiration?
Yes! The clothes on the wheely chair with the bra and scarf on it. I was painting over the collage in a way that was a lot more free. I worked it on the floor and it just all started to stick together in a way that wasn’t sticking before.
Is there somewhere you go to seek inspiration?
Me and Danny, especially now we’re in Margate, if we do feel stuck, we like to go to London and have a day looking through all of the galleries - Mayfair, East London… even if there are things you don’t always like, it’s so good to interact again with exhibitions that are going on. We love Cork Street, the V&A, Victoria Miro, David Zwirner. I like to go and see my friends down here who are artists, visit their studios. I think it’s so important to take a step back sometimes and spend a bit of time drawing.
Right now, if you could choose any painting from art history to have on your wall, which one would you choose?
I’d have Les Demoiselles by Picasso. I love that painting so much. It has those pinks that have been such an influence, quite ochery-pinks. It’s one of those paintings that’s completely masterful.
Is there a particular shade of pink that you’d love to be known for one day?
I do love that pink when I mix a really good red and I have Naples Yellow and White, that’s
what I mix to get that real ochery-pink. I love spending time mixing the paint. If I’m starting a body of work, I’ll make ten different pinks, and ten different blues, and I’ll spend that time and have those big pots ready to go.
Which artist, alive or dead, would you like to invite over for a morning coffee in your studio?
It’d have to be Picasso. That’d be iconic. I also really love Gillian Ayres, she’s been a massive influence on my work, even though the subject matter is quite different, and she’s a lot more abstract, I love her and I’d have loved to have her in the studio.
If you could have any artist from history paint your portrait, who would you choose and why?
I think I’d choose Van Gogh… or Howard Hodgkin. One of those two. When Danny and I went to Paris to see Van Gogh’s work in the flesh, it was so different seeing his work in real life to seeing it in art books - his work is breathtaking. Van Gogh’s interior painting, still lifes and flower paintings were such a big inspiration to me.
Is there a book in particular that has had the biggest impact on your work and life?
In terms of art books - the Selected Writings of Roy Oxlade - I think that is a fantastic book that every artist whether they’re a painter, sculptor, filmmaker, should read. It’s just such a great book about creativity. A literature book that I love… I read Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson when I was about 17, and I think that just started my love for contemporary fiction. That was an important book for me to read when I was younger. Margaret Atwood’s books as well, and Carol Ann Duffy - they’re writers that I just love.
How are these works in the Redfern a departure from your previous works?
It was a body of work that I’ve wanted to make for a while - interiors, getting ready,
clothes, almost a theatrical sense of getting ready, where there’s Prosecco and starry boots - clothes that seem very extravagant. I really wanted to play around with it for a long time - the idea that getting ready could almost feel like theatre. Whenever I tried to get that idea onto canvas, it wouldn’t work. I really persisted with it and I made the painting that’s the big double painting - I was working on it as two singular pieces to start with, and when I put the two canvases together, and brought in the guitars, the shoes on the floor and the hat stand that comes out of the corner, it just freed up the whole thing. That was the start of the body of the work, and it all went from there. It opened it up and meant that I could work on the other canvases because it freed up the whole process. I just had real fun with it - I really enjoyed that sense of imagining which objects could be there when you’re getting ready even if they aren’t - whether it be a pizza, or whatever!
When do you tap into the most free side of your creativity?
Sometimes painting can be really infuriating… but when you get to a point where you’re working, and it’s flowing and it’s going the way you feel like you’ve wanted it to go for a long time - you get that feeling then. It’s not an everyday feeling - it probably only comes once a month and then you feel like, ‘yes, this feels right and this is how I need to keep going with it’. When that moment hits and you know you’re onto something that’s when I feel most free. It’s that classic thing, when you know a painting is finished, it’s when you feel that freeness.
Yes - like an illumination, a startling rightness about the painting, where you just know inside, without a doubt that it’s finished…
Completely. As soon as the painting feels free… You’re detached from it and can step back from it and be happy to leave it. It’s that certainty that the painting is definitely finished… when it almost feels like it’s not yours anymore.
Oil paint and collage on canvas
180 × 115 cm
Hat Stand (Nighttime) 2024
Oil paint, oil bar and collage on canvas
140 × 90 cm
Hat Stand (Daytime) 2024
Oil paint and collage on canvas
140 × 90 cm
opposite
Dressing Up 2023
Oil paint, oil bar and collage on canvas 180 × 160 cm
following page
Two Champagnes, Two Hats, Two Guitars 2023-24
Oil paint, collage and oil bar on canvas 180 × 240 cm (diptych, each panel 180 × 120 cm)
Clothes on a Chair (Evening) 2023
Oil paint and collage on canvas
110 × 80 cm
Clothes on a Chair (Morning) 2023
Oil paint and collage on canvas
110 × 80 cm
Dining Room at Night I 2023
Oil paint on canvas
30 × 40 cm
Oil paint on canvas
30 × 40 cm
Collage and Indian ink on paper
29.5 × 41.4 cm
Get Your Shoes On (Yellow) 2023-24
Oil paint and collage on canvas
90 × 70 cm
Get Your Shoes On (Orange) 2023-24
Oil paint and collage on canvas
90 × 70 cm
Flowers I 2023
Oil paint on canvas 40 × 30 cm
Flowers II 2023
Oil paint on canvas 40 × 30 cm
Flowers III 2023
Oil paint on canvas 40 × 30 cm
Flowers IV 2023
Oil paint on canvas 40 × 30 cm
Flowers V 2023
Oil paint on canvas 40 × 30 cm
Flowers VI 2023
Oil paint on canvas 40 × 30 cm
Flowers VII 2023
Oil paint on canvas 40 × 30 cm
Flowers VIII 2023
Oil paint on canvas 40 × 30 cm
Flowers (Purple) 2024
Oil paint on canvas 40 × 30 cm
Flowers (Red) 2024
Oil paint on canvas 40 × 30 cm
Flowers (Green) 2024
Oil paint on canvas 40 × 30 cm
Flowers (Pink) 2024
Oil paint on canvas 40 × 30 cm
opposite (detail)
Collage and Indian ink on paper
29.9 × 41.4 cm
Studio Still Life I 2023
Collage and Indian ink on paper
29.6 × 42.3 cm
The Shoe Rack III 2023
Oil pastel and pencil on paper
42 × 29.8 cm
The Shoe Rack II 2023
Oil pastel and pencil on paper
42 × 30 cm
Clothes on a Chair 2023
Oil pastel on paper
42.3 × 29.7 cm
The Kitchen Pantry 2023
Oil pastel and pencil on paper
42.2 × 29.6 cm
opposite (detail)
The Shoe Rack IV 2023
Oil pastel and pencil on paper
41.8 × 29.6 cm
The Shoe Rack V 2023
Oil pastel and pencil on paper
42 × 28 cm
The Shoe Rack I 2023
Oil pastel and pencil on paper
42.4 × 29.6 cm
The Shoe Rack VI 2023
Oil pastel and pencil on paper
42.5 × 29.8 cm
opposite (detail)
Florence Hutchings
Education
2014-2015 UCA Rochester Foundation (Distinction)
2015-2019 Slade School of Fine Art BA (First Class Honours)
Solo Exhibitions
2024 The Redfern Gallery, London, ‘Dressing Room –New Paintings and Works on Paper’
2023 Makasiini Contemporary, Finland, ‘Silhouetted Rooms’
Jari Lager Gallery, Seoul, ‘ Body Clock’
2022 Delphian Gallery, London, ‘The Doors of Perception’
2021 Private and Public Gallery, Jersey, ‘Inside Out’
2020 Union Gallery, London, ‘The Place I Call Home’
2019 Beers London, London, ‘The Poetry of the Everyday’
2018 Delphian Gallery, London, ‘Seating Arrangement’
Two Person Exhibitions
2023 Private and Public Gallery, Jersey, ‘Going Out Coming Home’
2020 Beers London, London, ‘A Kindred Spirit’
2020-2021 Setareh Gallery, Düsseldorf, ‘The Space Between’
2019 The Cabin, LA, ‘Florence Hutchings and Danny Romeril’
The Halpern Gallery, Kent, ‘Objects in Translation’
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023 Union Gallery, ‘20th Anniversary Show’
Royal Academy of Arts, London, ‘Summer Exhibition’
Asia Art Centre, Beijing, ‘On the Voyage’
Logomo Museum (Curated by Makasiini Contemporary), Turku, ‘About Art 2023’
2022 Jari Lager Gallery, Cologne, ‘Weeds Won’t Wither’
Asia Art Centre, Taiwan, ‘Narrative Minds’
Horsebridge Arts Centre, Whitstable, ‘In Pursuit of Play’
2021 The Redfern Gallery, London, ‘Eileen Agar: Another Look’
Union Gallery, London, ‘Holding Hands’
2020-2021 Saatchi Gallery, London, ‘Antisocial Isolation’
2020 Mall Galleries, London, ‘FBA Future’
2019 Saatchi Gallery, London, ‘Kaleidoscope’
2018 New Arts Project, London, ‘Places and Faces’
Beers London, London, ‘Works on paper’
2017 Doomed Gallery, London, ‘Mud’
The Chopping Block Gallery, London, ‘Do I Beg This Slender Inch’
The Crypt Gallery, London, ‘All’s Well’
2016 Geddes Gallery, London, ‘Magical Offspring’
Collections
2017-2018 Saatchi Gallery opposite: Photograph by Byrnley Davies
Big thank yous go to Mick Hutchings (Florence’s father) for always being a source of inspiration and support, Daniel Romeril for spending everyday painting together and always being there to converse with, and to the whole team at Redfern for putting together this exhibition.
Rosie Osborne
In 2019, Rosie Osborne published Free Spirits, her first book, featuring interviews with Sandra Blow, Danny Fox, Guy Yanai, Erin Lawlor, Samuel Bassett, JonOne, Sax Impey, Mohamed Khalil, Sylvette David, Jonathan Lux and Théo Haggaï. The book is stocked at the Tate, as well as stores in London, Paris, Copenhagen and New York.
In 2020, Osborne founded her own artists’ residency in St Ives, Cornwall – The New St Ives School.
Catalogue © The Redfern Gallery, 2024
Works: © Florence Hutchings
Interview: © Rosie Osborne
Photography works: Florence Hutchings
Design: Graham Rees Design
Print: Gomer Press
Published to coincide with the exhibition
Florence Hutchings Dressing Room
New Paintings and Works on Paper
10 April to 10 May 2024
Published by The Redfern Gallery, London 2024
ISBN: 978-0-948460-96-8
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying recording or any other information storage or retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the gallery.
20 Cork Street
London W1S 3HL
+44 (0)20 7734 1732
info@redfern-gallery.com
redfern-gallery.com
