England-born, LA based British-Iranian artist Kour Pour – famous for his series of carpet paintings – delves into the rich history of Persian rugs, unshackling and readdressing cultural categorisations. And he makes something both historic and entirely new. From a youth spent climbing up piles of Persian rugs in his father’s shop, to Iran’s historical and current politics, to the voices of hip-hop music, Kour Pour chats to Isabella Fergusson about the many inspirations woven into his intercultural, intertemporal artworks

LUX: You were born in Exeter, England, but moved to LA. What effect does place – and did the move – have on your art?

Kour Pour: I very naturally respond to my surroundings in my work – images and materials I come across around the world make their way into the studio. I think it’s safe to say that Los Angeles and everything that I encounter here finds a way into my practice. My community here is incredibly diverse, and all the people that find their way into my life influence my practice. Exeter was beautiful, but it was quite homogenous. Moving from Devon to LA helped to open my world up.

LUX: You’ve exhibited all around the world; where do you feel that audiences most resonate with your works? Is it very different across these places?

KP: The nature of my practice is that it’s quite varied: I make paintings and sculptures and large-scale prints, and these can range from hyper-figurative to hyper-abstract. My experience has been that this allows everyone to have a different access point to my work, and that it promotes resonances across different cultures and geographies. I think of my different bodies of work as different languages, and therefore that allows me to have a conversation with as many people as possible.

Gathering In The Courtyard, 2022, Acrylic on canvas over panel

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LUX: Tell me about your father’s carpet shop – your earliest memories there, its inspirations for your work now.

KP: My father moved to Exeter by himself when he was 14 – a result of the Iranian Revolution in ’79. Eventually his older brother joined him, but the two of them were teenagers in a new country without a support system. So, they had a typical immigrant experience of arriving in a new place and just having to figure it out. My father eventually rented a storefront that had many different lives when I was growing up: a sunglass store, and ice cream shop. That one was my favorite. But when I was about 4 or 5, it was a carpet store. I remember being a child and climbing around all the rugs and feeling that they made a place seem like home. I also remember my father touching up old and faded carpets by hand using natural dyes. That was probably one of the first times I was exposed to painting, in any form.

Jade Tiger, 2021

LUX: You’ve said before that you wished museum collections wouldn’t be separated by geographic location or time period, which throws up the challenge of overly constrictive categorisation, particularly in the case of your work. But where would you place your art if it had to be geographically categorised – by its inspiration, or the location it was painted, or your descent? Perhaps it simply cannot comfortably be boxed up…

KP: I don’t want to categorise the work. One of the beautiful things about art is that you can find relationships across temporal and geographic boundaries. I want to allow my work that freedom.

LUX: I was speaking to an artist yesterday that said that a painter has to confront and get over the fact that what he does is – in absolute terms – utterly pointless. Do you agree? Have you had to to confront a sense of uselessness?

KP: Maybe an artist that has nothing to say in their work could feel that painting is pointless, but I absolutely disagree with that notion. Art is a healer. Whether for the artist or the viewer, the act of creating is therapeutic and experiencing someone else communicate through any medium is both thrilling and comforting. It’s an expression of being alive. There are so many things art can do. It raises awareness, it becomes a record of a time, it tells stories, and it imagines alternative ways of being. Art is endless in its possibilities.

A Voyage For Tea & Spices, 2023, Acrylic on canvas over panel, 84 x 60 inches

LUX: Should art’s political role be more respected – and is art, or should it be, inherently political?

KP: Art is made by people. Some individuals exist in worlds that are heavily politicized, and some don’t. Artists make work that is, directly or indirectly, a reflection of their reality, so you could argue that art is always social and political.

LUX: How do your Iranian roots play into your work?

KP: My Iranian identity has always been a big part of how I navigate my reality. It has influenced both how I’ve engaged with the world, and how the world has engaged with me. I’ve used Iranian imagery in my own practice, and that identity has also guided some projects that are not directly related to what I’m doing in the studio. In 2022, I opened an exhibition project space in my studio complex in Inglewood, called Guest House. The first show was of Iranian artists living in Los Angeles, born out of what I perceived as a lack of engagement with the Iranian community by the city’s art scene. Which is crazy, given how many Iranians there are in LA – the city has the largest population living outside of Iran.

Eternal Springtime (Nowruz), 2017 – 2021, Acrylic on canvas over panel, 96 x 144 inches

Two weeks after we opened the exhibition, the Woman, Life, Freedom protests broke out after Jina Mahsa Amini’s death in Tehran. Guest House immediately became a hub for the community. We would have people come visit the show and trade news about what was going on back home in Iran, we had film screenings, and we tried to respond in whatever way we could to what was going on. That sense of community, and the relationships that I made over the course of that first exhibition, have entered the studio and now help inform the totality of my studio practice.

LUX: Hip-hop and carpet painting seem an unlikely combination. What about the music inspires you, and is it hip-hop’s differences or similarities to your medium which feed your works?

KP: One of the things that initially drew me to hip hop was the idea of sampling: taking a sound from a song, transforming it, and adding it into another song. This matches up with the way that the carpets I’m interested in were made: images would travel along the Silk Road and there would be this incredible intermixing of cultures. A single rug that was assigned Persian origin would have images from as far west as Venice and as far east as China. I think that the language around sampling in hip hop is a perfect way to speak about these works.

See more: kourpour.com

Jamiu Agboke

A recent exhibition spotlighted some of the most exciting young artists based in Britain. The twist? It happened in Paris. Artists photographed by Isabella Sheherazade Sanai

It is no secret that, post Brexit, Paris has been taking giant canvas-sized bites out of London’s position as capital of the European art world. So we loved Galerie Marguo’s playful contribution to the cultural battle, which took place in May and June of this year. The elegant gallery put on a show of British-based artists at its space in the Marais. Those taking part included Jamiu Agboke, Freya Douglas-Morris, Li Hei Di and James Prapaithong, photographed here, and others including recent RCA graduate Georg Wilson. Curated by Henry Relph, the show was entitled “A New Sensation”, in an arch reference to the iconic 1997 show, “Sensation”, at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, which featured the influential collection of Charles Saatchi, and was a major moment in triggering London’s art boom.

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LUX asks: what does it mean to be a London based artist today?

Jamiu Agboke
“I love London deeply and it’s my home, but it doesn’t mean anything to me personally to be an artist in London. That’s just due to the nature of my work and practice. Also, it’s a financial obstacle course for most artists.”

James Prapithong

James Prapaithong
“To be a London based artist today is to see the opportunities that the city can present, but also to accept the struggle that can go hand in hand, without giving up.”

Freya Douglas-Morris

Freya Douglas-Morris
“I was born in London and for the past 20 years I have lived and worked in Hackney. I am surrounded by people who look, listen, feel, make, share. I can access a multitude of creative sources, then retreat to my studio and work in a quiet setting. I need this contrast, to be surrounded by the inspiration and energy of a big city, and to paint in a room that is its antidote, calm and private. London is vast, giving room to the trials and errors of being an artist, but small enough to feel you belong.”

Read more: Visual art and music meet in Shezad Dawood’s latest exhibition

Li Hei Di

Li Hei Di
“I miss the sun. The lack of light makes me search for light in my paintings.”

Find out more: marguo.com

This article was first published in the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of LUX

Exterior of The Lygon Arms Hotel

The Arrival

Halfway down the high street, no, make that pretty much the only street, in a village on the western edge of England’s Cotswold Hills, the Lygon Arms makes you feel like you have arrived in the 15th century. But in the nicest way. Broadway, the village, is light and open, set on a slope leading up to the highest ridge of this area, beloved by writers, nobles and more recently politicians and celebrities, for centuries. Opposite the Lygon’s little driveway is a village store selling everything from soy cappuccinos to focaccia (it’s not really the 15th century here) and beyond you see the outline of hills and woodland. Beautiful.

Private dining room

Walk inside the arched entrance and you have a coaching inn that has been refreshed by England’s most upmarket country hotel group: low ceilings, worn stone floors and gentle lighting are all there, but so are zippy, eager staff and a bar bristling with very 21st-century cocktails.

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The In-Room Experience

No two rooms are the same in this ancient hostelry, and we are grateful the latest owners didn’t decide to hire some Paris-based super-interior-architect to turn the interior all generic rich person chic. Our room consisted of three separate areas, an entrance lobby, mini-reception area and bedroom, all in a long line, followed by the bathroom.

The Courtyard Suite

The windows looked out over the courtyard at the centre of the hotel, which has been converted by the most recent owners from a car park to a garden-cum-terrace. A view of vintage Astons and Bentleys, not without its virtues, has been replaced by people-watching from up high: in the courtyard were a mix of hipster English couples, multicoloured American groups, and Belgian and French families undeterred by Brexit and its resultant border bureaucracy.

Master Suite

But just because the Lygon has retained its authenticity and hasn’t had its corridors turned black and uplit (thank goodness), don’t start thinking you’re in for the less good aspects of the traditional British country experience, namely beds you can feel the springs through and bathrooms with a dribble of warm water. The bed was huge and luscious, the bathroom beautifully appointed. A copy of The Mistresses of Cliveden by Natalie Livingstone was on the writing desk, and (full disclosure) LUX is also usually in the rooms alongside their in-house publication.

The Out-of-Room Experience

You walk out of the front door into the middle of possibly the prettiest village in Britain, which probably makes it the prettiest village in the world. Turn left and, beyond a very scenic adventure playground for adults and children, is a good walk up to the Broadway Tower, a 300-year-old folly with a view across to Wales. Castles, Roman ruins, the Cotswolds Way walk, villages, and highly fortified estates owned by oligarchs are within a few minutes’ drive. Isn’t that enough? In case it’s not, the hotel itself has more tricks up its sleeve than you might expect from what seems from the outside like a coaching inn.

The indoor swimming pool

The central courtyard restaurant, for starters. This is now a restaurant and we had a fabulous long lunch here. The menu is a California-style, healthy take on country food: poached turbot with salsa verde, charred cauliflower steak with romanesco (fabulous), sort of idea. Margaritas were so punchy that one member of our group had to sober up with some berry cordial, bought from a local store, in the garden after lunch. Behind the hotel is a quite extensive garden, invisible from the hotel itself: croquet and tennis are available, and we hear there will be more activities opening for next summer.

Homemade crumble

What we liked the most was the staff. British country hotels seem to think they have a binary choice: formal, removed and (because this is Britain) a bit spluttering and Fawlty Towers; or chummy, inclusive and Soho House-ish, which can get a bit tiring if a) it’s not actually Soho House and b) you don’t want a long chat with your server about the latest music, you just want to be served.

The Lygon Arms seems to have found a happy medium. The staff are there to serve, not to be your friends, but they’re also not glaring at you like hawks. Very nice.

Read more: Chef Rasmus Kofoed: The Vegetable King

Drawbacks

The Lygon Lounge

Although it’s in one of the loveliest locations in Britain, if not the world, the Lygon Arms is a village hotel, not a full-on country house in its own grounds. If you have children or animals or indeed humans who need a lot of space to run around and sweeping vistas, you should try somewhere else – including another hotel in the same group, the magnificent Cliveden, across the other side of the Cotswolds towards London. There, you’re also likely to see all the classic cars that can no longer lodge in the courtyard at the Lygon Arms.

Rates: From £230 average per night (approx. €275/$280)

Book your stay: lygonarmshotel.co.uk

Darius Sanai

Bentley’s latest Bentayga SUV is more environmentally friendly, faster, more comfortable

LUX Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai discovers Bentley’s new, faster and more environmentally friendly Bentayga model revealed earlier this week

You, dear LUX reader, have a transport conundrum. Your driver is self-isolating, and you have a desperate need to transport yourself, your latest husband, two very long adolescent offspring, and a large number of Louis Vuitton suitcases, from the private aviation terminal at Nice airport to your villa above St Tropez. (The husband does not do helicopters).

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We are pleased to say that a solution is at hand, courtesy of British (well, British-based) automobile manufacturer Bentley and its new Bentayga SUV, announced this week.

You will naturally have been familiar with the existing Bentayga, which was pretty much the most luxurious way to transport a large family at frightening speed while taking up most of the Autoroute Provencale.

The new model is more environmentally friendly, faster, more comfortable and has more room in the rear for those ever-growing adolescents, or alternatively your long-legged late night companions home from La Voile Rouge and, crucially, it looks better: sleeker, and less huge.

Read more: Two of London’s best restaurants in our home

Apparently, it drives better also, thanks to a wider track between the wheels and various other improvements that we won’t go into here. The key point is that you will feel like les genoux de l’abeille (the bee’s knees) as you hand the keys to the voiturier at Les Caves. Now, where’s the alcohol-free Dom Perignon?

Discover more: bentleymotors.com

‘Dead End’ (2018), Loie Hollowell

Frank Cohen is one of the UK’s most renowned art collectors. Since selling his DIY business in 1997, he has built up a collection of more than 2,000 artworks by classic and contemporary artists. Here, he tells us how he caught the collecting bug, and which destinations are the most interesting for art right now.

Frank Cohen. Image by Jonathan Straight

1. How did you first get into collecting?

As young as 7 years old I started to collect cigarette packets. In those days there were not so many brands and the cigarette packets had wonderful graphic designs on them. I asked all my aunts and uncles and my mothers friends to save the packets when they had smoked the cigarettes as everyone smoked in those days. 68 years ago it was fashionable and I kept them in mint condition always.

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When I was about 14 years of age I started collecting coins. One day when I went to a cinema in Manchester the cashier gave me a Victorian penny in my change. I had never seen one before so I took it to a numismatist, which was next to the cinema and he gave me half a crown for it! I collected coins for nearly 20 years and had one of the biggest collections of pattern coins in England.

Pattern coins are coins that were presented to the Royal Mint to be picked to go into circulation. I collected the ones that were never put into circulation, making them very rare. There were only about 10 minted of each, one always went to the Victoria & Albert Museum for their collection and the Queen gets one.

‘Glasgow Docks’ (1947), L.S. Lowry

2. Do you have an all time favourite artist?

I have all time favourite artists during different times in my collection. When I started collecting there was no contemporary art scene, so I collected Modern British art but if I could have afforded to buy anything I would have bought Picasso or Monet.

When I first started buying I bought Edward Burra, a fantastic English painter who only painted in water colours that looked like oils. I also bought L.S.Lowry, one of the greatest British painters of the last 100 years. In the late ‘70’s I bought Dubuffet and Miró from Leslie Waddington who let me pay for them over 2 or 3 years, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to collect them. Afterwards he offered me Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns and Mark Rothko, that were actually very cheap but I still couldn’t afford them. Today they are worth millions! You win some and lose some and I don’t regret anything or anything I bought.

3. If your collection could speak, what would it say about you?

My collections speak to me and my wife Cherryl, who has always been very important and supportive in my career. We’ve really collected together. I don’t care what anybody else thinks. It would say to me ‘I love you because you have made the right choice’.

‘La Vie en Rose’ (1980), Jean Dubuffet

4. What’s the most interesting destination for art right now and why?

I suppose the Far East is an interesting destination right now for buyers but because the world is global there are some really good artists coming through from Brazil, Africa, Thailand and Romania. America, Germany and London, France and Italy were always at the forefront.

Read more: Contemporary ceramicist Edmund de Waal at The Frick Collection, NYC

5. Have you ever doubted your artistic judgment?

I have never doubted my artistic judgment because it’s me buying the artist. To put it another way I have bought some terrible things over the years and some great things – how do you judge it, how much money is it worth? I have done very well but I haven’t bought for that reason. I have artists that will never ever increase in value but I love them still.

‘Anonymous Now’ (2019), Chloe Wise

6. What’s your exhibition recommendation for this year?

My recommendations for this year mean nothing except to me, as no doubt people that read this article will naturally have a different view. Besides all the classic artists I have collected over the years, I have also bought young artists as well right now like Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Alex de Corte, Chloe Wise, William Monk and Loie Hollowell.

Read more of our 6 Questions interviews here. 

Tom Davies is a British eyewear designer offering a truly bespoke service. Kitty Harris sits opposite the designer in his Royal Exchange shop to learn more about designing for the individual and the evolution of the luxury eyewear industry.

Tom Davies

Kitty Harris: You have had many design roles during your career. Why did you choose eyewear?
Tom Davies: When I was originally setting up my company, I set up in London to design frames for Tom Davies. But I was just starting out and I was doing contract design for other eyewear brands. For example, one of my big clients was Puma and I was designing their sports eyewear line under contract and also project managing the delivery. That was quite lucrative for me. But at the same time, I would take anything. I actually designed a popcorn maker, an MP3 player, a food mixer and so on. I set up companies just to qualify me for being able to take that particular job. For Aquascutum, I was designing websites and brochures. For Puma, I managed to weasel my way into their websites and brochures and before I knew it, I had twelve designers and a design company.

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But I wanted to pursue Tom Davies glasses, so I threw all of that away for what I truly wanted. All my other ventures were great but they were merely vehicles to make money; whereas eyewear defines the wearer. Human communication is through the face, so in terms of design, there is nothing more important. I think it is the number one design challenge and the most exciting. What really excited me was that nobody else knew that. It has been ignored by the world.

‘Specky four-eyes’ has haunted eyewear for thirty to forty years. It has been something that people haven’t wanted to wear, because it is seen as a medical device and a necessity. But the truth is, if you get to forty years old, 95% of people need some kind of correction for their vision. It is everywhere and everybody needs it. The challenge is to make something that somebody enjoys wearing – that makes them look good, that they are comfortable in and helps them. I get such satisfaction by making someone a really comfortable frame that will really suit them.

KH: How would you describe your design aesthetic?
TD: I am always looking at the person. It is the physical things. I have signatures in my frames – little touches that I like to put in there. Whilst a lot of eyewear brands have a certain hinge or style, which is how they define themselves; I am a bespoke brand, so I’m all about the person. If I was to make you a pair of glasses, I am looking at the shape of your eyebrows, your long eyelashes and your small nose and I think of how it will fit. I look at the shape of your hairline that frames your face, the earrings – how you accessorise yourself. I must design something that will bring all of that together and then match it. That is not easy, which is why people hate glasses. There is so much going on in your personality that you’re already outwardly projecting.

Read next: Visionary designer Bill Bensley on creating luxury dream worlds

The idea that you simply wear what I say and have to deal with it doesn’t really work. That is effectively what happens when you go to an optician. I take several aspects into account: your personal style and features, then we look at the delicacy and thickness of the rim, the tone of the colour, the finishing material (polished, matt or satin), how the frames are fitting. We must take all that into account and then have to consider the prescription requirements and what lens design will give you the optimum vision. You can squeeze any lens into a frame, but people can develop headaches and dizziness. It’s all about you – that is my design style. My products aren’t signature to a hinge, they are signature to the person, so you shouldn’t really be able to spot my frames.

KH: What’s wrong with a ‘one size fits all’ model?
TD: First of all, you must remember those funny caricatures that used to appear in newspapers and magazines where they had images of heart-shaped faces and square faces and they would state which shapes suited you. You don’t see those so much anymore, as they are nonsense and the consumers realised it. If you go into a normal optician, you tend to see a variety of different shapes that do generally work on people. Whether they fit them on the bridge or whether the arms are right is not clear. You will see a generic mix of shapes and if the opticians are good buyers, they will have bought enough to service most people in a generic sort of way. The reason people have used those devices in the past is because you had to buy off the shelf. There wasn’t really a bespoke service.

What I do is I take that same principle, as I have a fully functioning opticians here. You can walk away with a pair of glasses that fit you reasonably well, as with most opticians. But in actual fact, what we’ll do is say – we like this frame and then alter it in terms of shape and style. The principles are there in all opticians and everyone is trying to match face shape to frames as much as they can. But, I am taking that to the next level by starting with something you like and making it better. On my personal appointments, I will pretty much start with a blank piece of paper and sketch something. But generally speaking, if you come to my store, we will start with something the customer really likes and we then bring it on to the next level. It hasn’t necessarily been ignored, but the limits of normal business have prevented them from being able to cater for this.

KH: How would you say the industry has changed?
TD: It keeps changing faster and faster, almost every couple of months. It is now all about individuality in whatever brand you are looking at. There are many people now marketing a bespoke service, but it is generally offering their best-selling frame in twelve different colours. Often these bespoke services are also only offered in plastic, which is the easiest one to do and is often not that accurate and there is no designer behind it.

Read next: Jasper Johns’ alternative perspectives at the Royal Academy

If you come to us, there is a designer in-store and then a designer in my head office who is designing the frame on your face. It is then individually made for you to 0.1 of a millimetre. There is nobody doing anything like that, but there are lots of people in customisation and 3D printing who are coming into this sphere. I was at a trade show in January this year and two years ago, there were two other brands there. But this year, there were twelve other brands there offering some kind of customisation service. This boom is happening and you will see more and more customisation. It is the future of eyewear. You will then also see the big players, such as Luxottica, which owns most of the brands, trying to protect their system. They buy up the industry. For example, Luxottica and Essilor are merging at the moment to make the biggest retailer in the world. Between them, they will own over half of the industry. That is happening in eyewear as well. I think that will carry on happening.

The new Tom Davies store in Covent Garden

KH: Why did you decide to move your factory from China to Britain?
TD: There were many reasons for this. There is no eyewear industry in Britain. I think ten years ago, I would have been too threatened by the idea of training up the next generation of eyewear makers. But now at 42, I don’t feel threatened by that. I am going to be training people, we are bringing in a new generation and we have to create our own supporting industries for it in the UK. We will set up factories here and I find that an exciting challenge.

And also, I am 42 and it’s hard work to travel to China every six weeks. I live in perpetual jet-lag. I am now the master of upgrades, I know everything about everything on airplanes and I know the check-in people. But, I can’t keep doing that. The cost in China is also not what it used to be. Shenzhen is a fabulous place to do business, but it is actually more expensive than Hong Kong, and Hong Kong is as expensive as London. Therefore, economically there is not much of a financial benefit in being based there. Within three years, there will be no financial benefit at all.

Grayson Perry, Installation view, Serpentine Gallery, London. Photograph: Robert Glowacki.

British artist Grayson Perry refers to himself as a “communicator”, one who is aiming to “communicate to as wide an audience as possible”, which means, at this time, bridging the gap in Britain between a divided society. As such, the centrepiece of “The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!”, at the Serpentine Gallery, are the Brexit pots (provocatively titled “The Matching Pair”), which were created with the help of the British public who were invited, through social media, to contribute ideas, images and phrases. From across the room, these huge blue vases look remarkably similar; look closer and the images reveal not only two opposing view-points, but the artist’s own political sway. The Leave pot has Nigel Farage, Big Ben, Winston Churchill and ketchup, whilst the Remain pot is a collage of romance and literature, with a portrait of Shakespeare and kissing couples.

‘King of Nowhere’, 2015, Cast iron and mixed media, Photography: Stephen White.

Elsewhere, Grayson pokes fun at fat cat art collectors with one liner quips scrawled across his ceramics, such as “flat whites against racism”, and “luxury brands for social justice”. The bronze sculptures are perhaps the most striking, delving deep into the modern psyche and issues of identity: “King of Nowhere” is a wide legged, cap-wearing drunk with scissors and knifes plunged into his skin, surrounded by miniature bottles of whisky. It’s an overwhelming and chaotic insight into Grayson’s mind, a whirlwind of contrasting words and images that confront the viewer from even the most mundane of objects. Amusing on the surface with ominously aggressive undertones, it seems to me, to be a fairly accurate reflection of the current state of British society.

Millie Walton

“Grayson Perry: The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!” runs until 10th September 2017 at The Serpentine Gallery, London