In both her home and her new studio, Es Devlin has conjured up artistic havens where greenery flourishes and the imagination runs free
Devlin’s instinct to add drama wherever possible is evident in her home
FROM A SHADY GLADE TOWARDS THE BACK OF Es Devlin’s meadow-like garden, I admire the handsome red-brick Victorian house where the artist and stage designer lives with her husband and two children, which also contains her studio. It feels incongruous that this suburban idyll in north Dulwich has produced some of the most jaw-dropping big-budget sets in modern history – from the London 2012 Olympics closing ceremony to Lady Gaga’s tours and last year’s Super Bowl half-time show – as well as Devlin’s own independent art installations. All are created with her team, who occupy a white room at the front of the property, lined with books, maquettes and pencil drawings. Mirrored double doors demarcate the personal and the professional parts of the house, although they are often open; in the family kitchen, the studio’s cook is putting the finishing touches to staff lunch. The designer soon joins me outdoors, apologising for having been held up on a marathon Zoom call and delighting in the fresh air. ‘Oh, look, here’s a bluetit joining us,’ she says, greeting the bird with a smile. ‘Right, let’s eat and talk.’
As you might expect from an English graduate, musician and designer known for the breadth of her work and depth of her research, Devlin has an encyclopaedic mind. During our conversation, which takes place over plates of beetroot and pistachio salad, her references encompass AI, Mark Rylance, the Bayeux Tapestry, hieroglyphs, Zadie Smith, the common-land law and the meaning of selfies. Yet, for an artist at the height of her powers – with whom pop stars, theatre-makers (Sam Mendes and
Benedict Cumberbatch), Olympic committees and fashion houses including Chanel and Saint Laurent clamour to work – she is generous and easy-going. Bazaar had a glimpse of her innate spirit of collaboration last year, when she and Cate Blanchett co- created the magazine’s art-issue cover; during this shoot, Devlin frequently asked for input from everyone present. ‘I think we could… groovify this set-up a bit more,’ she said at one point. ‘Thoughts?’
Her instinct to add drama wherever possible is evident in her home, which she bought, gutted and transformed with her team’s help (many have backgrounds in architecture) in 2016. She had the open-plan living area’s bare-brick London-sandstone walls enhanced, trompe-l’œil-style, by the National Theatre’s set painter; and
