Ornate – her most recent exhibition at the Nilufar Gallery – addresses the importance of memory and its potential “for understanding, learning and educating through objects.”

Inês Graça: How does travel influence the work you have been developing? Bethan Laura Wood: I have always been interested in doing drawings based on the environments and objects that surround us in our daily lives. Whenever I travel – be it for a residency or to promote my work – I try to make the most of it by photographing and visiting new places, and that’s where I get my inspiration from. This is very apparent in the collaborations I have been involved in, such as the one I carried out with Pietro Viero, who I met at a residency in Vicenza. There was also a change in the tones of my ‘palette’ after returning from Mexico in 2013. Before that, my colours had been very closely connected to London and Europe, then they started getting bolder, more complex, reflecting a greater confidence in using those intense, saturated colours associated with Mexican culture. When things settle down, I hope to once again be able to work directly with artisans and producers in Korea, China and Japan.

Apropos of the theme of this issue, can we say that Memory is also a tool in your work? Your recent exhibition at the Nilufar Gallery, where you materialize the concept of a feminine boudoir, is a good example of this allusion to temporality. In this exhibition, we aimed to celebrate the decade-long relationship I have nurtured with the owner of the gallery Nina Yashar. Many of the works were conceived and produced during and after the Covid-19 lockdown. When we were discussing the works and the historical pieces that might be most fitting, we thought about the possibility of recreating the traditional boudoir, which is essentially the name given to a room designed specifically for women. I felt that it would readily connect to the Art Nouveau and British Aesthetic Movement influences, providing an underlying reference in all the pieces, but also to Virginia Woolf and the idea of having one’s own space, which proved so pertinent in this period of instability.

Do you acknowledge a preference for certain types of objects and materials? I try to respond to a place, material or an artisan/producer rather than deciding to produce a particular type of object (although there are occasions when the type of object comes first), which explains why so much variety can be seen in what I make. I often say that I like to generate distance through details, to create dreamscapes. I want my works to contain several layers without having a dominant aesthetic. That different people occupy different places, that there is scope for all kinds of imagination. For example, in Moon Rock (laminated marquetry tables from the Fake Body suite), some people see ice creams, while others see shells, bacteria or bodies related to biology. I love the way that people see something related to their personal memories. A lot of people might associate my work with colour and pattern, but for me it’s more about how overlaying connects all my works.