What do you do?
Paris: Designer and co-founder of Paris Georgia, a womenswear fashion label.
Henry: Wine hack and owner of Annabel’s Wine Bar.
Why do you go to galleries?
To stay connected and to discover new things and ideas. It gives us a thrill to discover new work by artists we know, but also to discover and learn about emerging practices. It gives us fresh perspective on the cultural landscape, and on the world.
What is the first artwork that really mattered to you?
P: A commission by Andrew Barber; one of his incredible landscapes of a view that’s important to us.
H: My first was a painting by a friend Charles Munka who is now based in Tokyo. We worked together for a few years in Hong Kong (where I grew up) and he gifted me one of his paintings when we parted ways.
If you could add any work of art to your collection?
P: Anything from Donald Judd’s New York home.
H: We saw some Henry Taylor paintings in the flesh in Venice that were pretty incredible.
Is there one piece in your collection that you return to?
We spend a lot of time lost in our Milli Jannides’ painting The gleaming mechanism (2017).
Tell us about the one that got away?
Ruth Buchanan’s aluminium chain curtain titled Split, Splits, Splitting (2016/2018).
Tell us about a recent discovery?
P: masterclass.com was a nice distraction whilst we were in isolation.
H: We bought a fabric painting from a young artist, Olly Zander Jones, in Wellington. He very generously got out of bed early on a Sunday the morning to show us his latest work… That felt like a pretty good discovery.
Why collect?
For us, it’s been life-changing. Each piece is extremely personal to us and gives us a thrill in some way; through the works we collect we are reminded, every day, of a certain experience or time in our lives. Also, collecting helps us to feel as though we are participating in something larger, outside of our own orbits.
What should change?
Systemic racism.
What should stay the same?
Our commitment to addressing the climate crisis.
Recommend something/s to read/watch/listen to?
We are listening to a selection of NTS Radio shows. Recently we dialled in to In Focus: Jim Jarmusch, and followed up by watching his film Broken Flowers, which felt like a quiet road trip through the late 90’s. We have shared the following books over lockdown: Three Women by Lisa Taddeo, Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo, Swing Time by Zadie Smith and Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.