Page 184 - home and garden

The dining area to the right is more formal. The visual
space flows into the kitchen through a generous asymmetrical
cut-out in the wall, which gives a feeling of continuity. At one
side hangs The Swinging, a painting by Grear Patterson,
whose work was shown at Depart in March. Valeria’s office is
to the right of the front door, where a boy peeps out from
behind a wall; he initially looks real, but turns out to be in a
photograph by Ryan McGinley.
Lautner’s staircase is still intact; its curved lines bring a
sensuousness to the space, as does the round Spot painting by
Joe Bradley that hangs here. Upstairs, by removing a corridor
wall, Johnston Marklee has created a more flexible area that
is used as a sitting room-cum-television room and leads to
the children’s room, where they sleep on Modernica’s ‘Case
Study’ bentwood beds. The main bedroom down the hall has
an Ettore Sottsass bed, which sits below a blue canvas by
San Francisco-born artist Aaron Bobrow.
Her family now settled, Valeria is looking forward to her
second year in Los Angeles. Her knowledge of contemporary
art has been put to good use – as well as her work for Depart,
she is on the Decorative Arts and Design Acquisition
Committee of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. ‘I
love spotting new talent, developing friendships with young
artists, following their thinking and learning from them,’
she explains. ‘It’s really quite addictive’

Johnston Marklee: johnstonmarklee.com
Depart: departfoundation.com

182 NOVEMBER 2015 HOUSEANDGARDEN.CO.UK