Letter from the HTSI editor: the art of intimacy

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This fall arts special, The Art of Intimacy, is about interior monologues and the genesis of the creative process. The topic first came up during Frieze in London last October, where I noticed a lot of paintings and portraits depicting crumpled sheets or figures dozing in their beds.

It’s no secret that many great artists undertook their creative journeys through convalescence or after a period where they spent large periods of time alone. The Brontë sisters, Frida Kahlo, Katherine Mansfield, George Orwell and Marcel Proust were confined to bed or remote locations, often for periods during childhood, and it has been argued that this shaped the unique way they saw the world. Claudia Donaldson was bedridden for nine weeks last year when she broke her leg: she writes about the ways the experience fueled, sometimes nourished and sometimes tormented her thoughts. Your view from the bed helps set the tone for this meditative track, for which we’ve asked different artists where they can find their inspiration.

I highly recommend that you immerse yourself in the nocturnal universe of Arooj Aftab.

Rebecca Hall will be known to many for her career as an actress and director. His range is such that he can move between Shakespeare and independent films and big blockbusters like Godzilla x Konghis latest hit of this year. His paintings have been the product of a more private passion; they are also an articulation of her desire to be alone. In an exclusive first look at his studio, tells Jill Krasny about the “freedom” she finds there and how painting satisfies a completely different desire than acting. “I don’t do well unless I’m calm, psyched, and creative in some way for part of the day,” she explains.

Like many, I discovered Arooj Aftab through his 2021 album. Vulture Prince: Helped her become the first Pakistani artist to receive a Grammy. Your follow-up night reign was released earlier this year. Aftab’s sound is haunting, beautiful, multi-layered and deeply evocative. She cautions against describing it as “world music”: she simply sings contemporary music in “a different language,” and her latest album evokes a rich melodic realm of which she is the queen. David Honigmann spoke to her after her appearance at Glastonbury – She is currently undertaking a world tour which will see her return to the UK later this year. In our shoot styled by Benjamin Canares and photographed by Toby Coulson, she often looks evil. I highly recommend that you listen to their album and immerse yourself in their nocturnal universe.

Sisters Alba and Alice Rohrwacher’s powerful kinship developed when they were children growing up in rural Italy. The two quickly identified themselves as outsiders and their subsequent production emerges from a source of self-awareness: Alice, a director who continues to live in the same region, has since made films that evoke a strange, dreamlike world. Her older sister and sometime collaborator Alba was recently in Venice with Angelina Jolie promoting the biopic. Mariaand she also just returned as the quixotic Elena Greco in the television adaptation of my brilliant friend. Interviewed by Maria Shollenbarger in Rome this summerThey speak of their secret and shared language of brotherhood. As Alba says: she has a “very privileged access key” to her sister’s world “because I recognize the dreams that she dyes in it.”

There are other smooth rides here. Louis Fratino talks about historical references that help inform his intimate, and increasingly valuable, canvases portraying queer life. Alex Russell Flint guides us through the house of Poitou-Charentes which he has converted from an abandoned schoolhouse into a hall worthy of his great-grandfather, the famous watercolorist William Russell Flint. AND Nine creatives show us which is their favorite mug. in which they have their first drink of the day. In each case, their stories are particular and highly personal: an exclusive look at what remains a private creative world.

@jellison22