Tarka Kings is interviewed for the April issue of House and Garden. Emily Tobin and photographer Joshua Monaghan visit the former laundry in west London, where lines and grids seem to echo the intricate bands of colour on the artist's work on paper.
'...Housed in an old laundry in west London, the space is characterised by horizontal and vertical lines, much like the marks Tarka uses in her work. Bars on the windows cast grids of shadow , and narrow boards run the length of the ceiling.
Tarka makes her drawings using straight and vertical lines of graphite and coloured pencil, slowly building up layers. Paper is pinned to the wall and she stands as she draws. 'It's like walking a tightrope' she says 'It becomes more nerve-wracking towards the end of a drawing. You can't mess up, you can't take anything back, the smallest thing can make a real difference.' The softness of the mark-making conjures a feeling of intimacy - intrusion even - on the part of the viewer. While these are not portraits, it is important, explains Tarka, 'to capture some sort of psychological story, a sense of an interior life'.
The April issue is out now.
