At home with...Idris Khan and Annie Morris

Modern art mixed with cosy fabrics works a treat in the artist couple's Islington home

- CHARLOTTE DUCK

As artists we love colour and the combination of colours," says Idris Khan of the Islington house he shares with Annie Morris, their two children and a cavapoo named Pencil.

Morris uses inspiration from her own life in her artworks, which include the iconic Stack sculptures, and a dress made out of painted pegs that was commissioned by Burberry. Khan, who received an OBE in 2017, is renowned for utilising different media, including photography, to investigate memory and the passage of time.

As successful artists, both find themselves travelling the world; Morris has just come back from opening a show in Seoul, while Khan is working on a solo exhibition in Paris next April.

The house they come home to from their travels is a gorgeous Queen Anne townhouse, just off Upper Street, where they've lived for 15 years. "We were seeing a lot of houses, and nothing was that great. Then, we walked in here and, at the time, I was obsessed with Charleston [the Sussex home of Bloomsbury Group artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant].

This house had so much life in the paintwork, it hadn't been developed by someone who had painted all that out," says Morris.

While the couple loved its original features, the house, which was at one time a squat, needed to be brought up to modern standards.