In a recent edition of Apartamento Magazine, Chloe Sultan sat down with the one and only Solange to discuss her artful curation that is evidenced throughout the home that she’s had since she was 19 years old.
A Hollywood loft that oozes serenity in complete contrast to the 24-hour buzz of the world just outside her front door, Apartamento describe Solange Knowles’ home is a mix of “organic modernism, her own furniture designs, and Black art and vernacular objects she has collected over the years,” concluding that the space echoes the woman’s very spirit.
Speaking on what initially drew her to the space, Solange says: “It was a time of getting to know myself as a young woman and as a mother … I wanted to find a place where we could have a bit more grounding, a home life there with more stable roots. I was a single mother and was looking for a building with a sense of safety when I found this loft space in Hollywood.”
“I felt really connected to its ‘20s art deco architecture, its exterior, and all of its original mouldings and details. And the space inside got really good light.”
She goes on to tell Apartamento that interiors have always provided a way for this artist to create control in a nomadic lifestyle. “I guess I’ve always been drawn to places with history, places where you can feel someone else’s touch and sensibilities. And after leading such a nomadic life, I felt the one thing that I could control was building a world that cemented how I wanted to live—through architecture, through spaces, through interior worlds.”
From humble beginnings containing nothing more than a mattress, a bed for her son, and the most basic furniture, throughout the many intervening years Solange has personalised the space to speak to her soul. But it wasn’t until her mother stepped in and ‘Tina-fied’ it — painting walls, putting up curtains, adding a bedroom — that it truly became her home.
Interestingly, one thing that really stands out to Solange in this loft is the bath. “It’s a Japanese soaking tub,” she explains. “It completely immerses you up to your neck in water, just with you sitting. And I do most of my writing, conception, and ideation for performances and installations in the bathtub. I feel like this space really taught me the power of creating in proximity to water.”
One item the artist designed for her creative collection, Saint Heron, is her sofa. A modular piece of furniture with different variations that all start with a circle, Solange describes the process as very sacred to her. “I wanted to use velvet, a material that was durable and tactile enough to live in, spill things on, draw on — not too precious but still having a little bit of luxe-ness that just makes you feel good. And that colour brown has been a constant in my work, embodying the idea of living among the soil and the land.”
There’s also a glass table and lamp created by Solange to reflect her interest in geometry and pyramids. Another sacred object in this space is the DJ Screw tape that hangs, framed with a large mat, on her wall so that it takes up as much space in her life as possible.
As a devout supporter of Black artists, Solange takes us on a tour of some of the works that live within her home. “My relationship to living with art comes from my mother. My mother collects a lot of African and Black art, and so I’ve always lived among Black women artists, work that looks like me and gives me a sense of pride about my own beauty and sense of self,” she says. “I feel I wouldn’t be even a fraction of the artist that I am today had I not had the privilege to grow up immersing myself in work that gave me a sense of a compass in life.”
From the work of Robert Pruitt and the photography of Elliott Jerome Brown Jr., to the speakers that “can exist on their own as sculpture”, Solange’s home also contains a lot of conversations about Black hair. “The Ekoi headdress is one of those things where you walk into the space and you have a humbling experience being in her presence. She demands the kind of respect that really humbles you,” she says.
“The Alison Saar work in the bedroom reflects a time in my life with a lot of weight to the things that I was carrying. I’ve been a fan for a long time of her work and her mother Betye’s work. And going back to that bond I have with my mother through art, I’ve watched a couple of documentaries that feature Alison and Betye and feel a lot of similarities to me and my mother.”
Take a further look around Solange Knowles’ home through the gallery below, or head to Apartamento Magazine to read their interview in full.
Photography by Jody Rogac at Apartamento Magazine.
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