Boo who?

about design

Boo who?

about design

Bright as a button, Boo Compton is a contemporary abstract artist whose beautiful paintings are attracting the attention of galleries, art directors and private collectors around the world. We scratch beneath the surface to find out more about her love of colour and where she finds her inspiration.

Boo lives in Mendham with her daughter Lily and husband Darren, and she greets me at the gate of her thatched cottage in her characteristic blue overalls, all warmth and smiles. Inside, the cottage is a successful collaboration of the contemporary and the classic, a pair of the designer Tom Dixon lights perfectly in keeping propped up against the huge inglenook fireplace, and a pair of modern sculpted clay heads at home gazing at exposed rafters that date back to the early 15th century. Boo has lived here since she left London with Lily in 2006, finding solace and peace beneath its low ceilings, and as we chat in the kitchen, I can sense that is a fun family home where friends are always welcome. She met Darren through mutual friends in London and they married ten years ago, building ‘his and hers’ studios in the garden so they can both work from home.

Boo originally studied graphics at Kingston School of Art, moving to West Hampstead in the early 90s where she shared a mews house with a mix of music producers and DJs. “The music scene was evolving and club culture was on the rise. I set up my own design agency and started designing flyers for club nights at places like The End and

about design

Bagleys, which was London’s largest nightclub at the time. It was pretty wild but great fun.” Boo disappears upstairs and returns with her portfolio and we flick through past designs for invitations to private views at the iconic Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and posters for the South Bank Centre and Soul II Soul. It is a slice of pure nostalgia: those heady days of London life as a twenty-something, thick cigarette smoke, fashion statements and endless possibilities.

After moving to Suffolk, Boo continued to work as a graphic designer but began experimenting with painting. “I have always painted. It allowed me to break away from the constraints of graphic design, which can be tight and precise, and also to express my feelings.” She attended a series of art classes at Wingfield Barns run by abstract painter John Parker who encouraged her to explore that side of her own work. “John gave me the confidence I needed to believe in myself and after I sold well at my first Suffolk Open Studios exhibition, I threw myself into my art, covering the dining room with canvases and exploring colour, space and light.” Michelle Clover from the gallery at Snape Maltings was an early advocate of her work, and successful exhibitions at Carousel in Framlingham and Art Space in Woodbridge quickly followed.

In her studio, working canvasses are stacked by the window, finished ones wrapped for dispatch, and the crowded workbench is strewn with the fallout of her creative process - sketch pads filled with squares of colour, mixed by Boo to find the exact shade

about design

she has envisaged, tins stuffed full of brushes and oil bars, half squeezed tubes of acrylic, dripping aerosol cans, marker pens, glue sticks, encrusted palettes - it is messy and disorganised and wonderful. “My art tends to be emotionally based and I paint pictures in my mind before transcribing them onto the canvas.” She applies layers of colour and collage, the picture emerging as shapes and tones are added and subtracted, dashes of fluorescence giving vibrancy and rows of dots, texture and form. She balances the use of bold colour with light and shade, cleverly using negative space so that the art can breathe, whilst retaining enormous depth in her compositions.

Boo’s work is gaining traction, with collectors in Germany, California and Singapore, and her paintings have been selected and exhibited by two of the most established abstract galleries in the UK – Silson Contemporary in Harrogate and Gina Cross in Camberwell - the latter choosing sixteen abstracts to take to the Affordable Art Fair in London this year. “I am so grateful for their support and still feel that incredible buzz of excitement when anyone expresses an interest in my work.” Praise is often hard to accept, but after spending an afternoon with Boo and seeing her bold, beautifully expressive paintings, she should be proud of the journey that brought her to Suffolk and for allowing art to become such an expression of herself.

Commissions and studio visits welcome by appointment. www.boocomptonart.com Follow on Instagram /boocomptonart