This October, London plays host to a remarkable first. Varvara Roza Galleries presents Life in Colour – the debut UK solo exhibition of Norwegian-Egyptian painter Britt Boutros Ghali, an 88-year-old artist who still rises each morning to paint.
For over six decades, Ghali has been a pioneering figure in abstract expressionism, yet this is the first time Londoners will be able to experience her canvases on their own doorstep in the heart of London’s St James’s. The timing feels apt: now in her late eighties, Ghali is producing some of the most powerful and ambitious work of her career.
Born in 1937 in the fishing town of Svolvær, in northern Norway, she grew up in the aftermath of World War II, where the stark shifts in light and long winter nights shaped her sensitivity to colour. After showing in Paris in 1962, she devoted her life to painting, eventually making Egypt her permanent home in the early 1970s. Her Cairo and North Coast studios became legendary – places where collectors, curators and cultural leaders would gather, drawn as much to her vast, energetic canvases as to her mosaic-covered home.
Yet Ghali has never slowed down. “I start painting, and then I just build on and on,” she explains. “When you are in that energy, nothing can disturb you. It is a sort of transcendence.” Each morning, she returns to the canvas, layering gesture upon gesture, colour upon colour. Far from reflecting on a career behind her, Ghali’s art is a living, daily practice – one that continues to evolve.
Her accolades are considerable: Norway’s St. Olav’s Order (an honour once given to Edvard Munch), the Slovak Presidential Order for Art and Culture, and most recently, a lifetime achievement award from the Egyptian National Council for Women. Her works reside in collections across the world – from MoMA in Egypt to the Queen Noor Museum of Modern Art in Jordan.
But perhaps her greatest legacy lies in the spirit of her work. Ghali paints not to document suffering but to create beauty and renewal. “I don’t want to paint suffering – there’s too much of that in the world already. I want the paintings to be healing,” she says. “I just want my work to have soul and a feeling of beauty, and I want my paintings that leave my studio to communicate this soul when they come into a home. I want it to give the positive energy, and I want it to be an experience that is beautiful. I think it’s very wonderful when a very young couple come to me and say, my grandmother has one of your paintings on the wall and now we saving to buy a painting. It is wonderful how it travels through generations, because now it’s mostly very young people who follow my work. I feel painting is like life, and I feel that in my life I have to create something beautiful and put it into the world. I create beautiful surroundings where I live, and I make sure that I have wonderful friends and we eat well. I want things to be beautiful.”
This October, during Frieze Week, London audiences will finally have the chance to encounter that energy for themselves. With Life in Colour, Varvara Roza Galleries bring not just an exhibition but a celebration of an artist still at the height of her powers – an 88-year-old woman who continues to paint, every single day, with undimmed passion.
Varvara Roza Galleries is founded and led by Varvara Roza, an independent art advisor, curator and agent committed to artists whose purpose, authenticity and passion is redefining the landscape of contemporary art. It is her mission to platform those artists who elevate collective consciousness, and shine the light of hope in an increasingly fractured world.
Britt Boutros Ghali, A Life in Colour is at Varvara Roza Galleries.
2-20 October, 8 Duke Street, St James’s, London SW1W 6BN.
