The artist most famous for living in Los Angeles is arguably a Yorkshireman. David Hockney moved to the Californian city in 1964. His motivation? The beefcake magazine Physique Pictorial and a photo of the sleek Case Study House #21, plus a light that is “10 times brighter than anywhere else”. Ensconced in the Hollywood Hills, the painter captured the LA lifestyle of glistening pools and endless sunshine in glorious technicolour for more than half a century. In 2019, however, and just as LA’s reputation as a vibrant art-world destination was really spiking, Hockney decamped to France. Today, the city’s cultural landscape is being boosted by a new generation of British creatives, from artists such as Tahnee Lonsdale and Kour Pour to jeweller Polly Wales, who are carving out a niche for themselves between the surf and sprawl.
“LA has always been a very creative city but it definitely feels like it’s snowballing right now,” says Welsh-Italian LA transplant Alex Tieghi-Walker, 35. “I think a lot of British people always moved over to work in music and film, but now it has broader appeal.” Tieghi-Walker’s offering is Tiwa Select – a craft gallery of sorts. “I still don’t know if I’m a shop or a gallery or a curator or a platform,” he says of the endeavour he started in 2020 to showcase the work of self-taught artists and makers such as textile artist Megumi Shauna Arai and woodworker Vince Skelly (whose work is on show at LA’s Farago gallery until 12 July). There’s this idea that LA artists make work about light and space, but it’s about the people Kour Pour “There’s a really diverse and interesting mix of art being shown here at the moment,” says British-born painter Tahnee Lonsdale, who moved to LA with her husband and two young children in 2015. “Everyone is opening spaces,” she adds of the city’s art scene, which was whipped into a frenzy by the arrival of the Frieze art fair in 2019. Her gallery highlights include Hauser & Wirth (“the most beautiful space”), Jeffrey Deitch (“always quite epic”), Matthew Brown (“a really young, exciting gallerist”) and Harper’s, a New York outfit that opened its LA outpost on Melrose Avenue last year. The chain reaction of blue-chip arrivals continues with Pace, which opened in April, to be followed by Sean Kelly in September and Lisson and David Zwirner in 2023.
Polly Wales moved from London to LA in 2016, relocating her eponymous brand as well as her family – partner James (who is also her business partner) and her two daughters, Matilda, 11, and Freida, seven. Wales is known for her signature “cast not set” method: adding precious gems directly to molten gold. It’s a process that yields organic, textured forms, mottled with a rainbow of bling and pulled together with a punk aesthetic – from the subtly offbeat Confetti band rings to statement gem-encrusted skulls. Her setup in Highland Park is leafy and laidback, with her home and garden studio surrounded by fruit trees and roaming chickens: “I am getting to build my own LA bubble in my backyard,” she says. Like Wales, Tieghi-Walker is based eastside but in Echo Park – “a really dynamic, still-a-bit-scrappy neighbourhood. Think 2am tacos by the side of the road.” The house he rents is an extension of Tiwa Select: a sometime showroom for his rustic craft finds, where bougainvillea canopies an outdoor dining area and a bathtub is tucked in a garden nook. Originally built as an artist’s studio, it’s a space that lends itself to creativity – “and the kind of place I would never be able to live in London”. Lonsdale, though, is out west. “Eastside is really sceney and cool and vibey,” she says. “Westside is really not cool. Everyone wears yoga gear and drives around in Range Rovers.”
"The people who move here are a massive part of the city’s story"
Pour’s book on Yantras – visual aids for meditation © Rich Stapleton
Ceramics by Kour Pour informed by Islamic and Spanish colonial designs © Rich Stapleton
His adopted city is home to one of the largest Iranian populations outside of Iran, and he admits that the diverse network of neighbourhoods – “Chinatown, Koreatown, Tehrangeles” – is a major draw. “In LA, most of my friends are immigrants or the children of immigrants,” says Pour. “There’s this idea that LA artists make work about light and space, or about Hollywood, but there’s another side to it, which is the people who move here – and that’s a massive part of the city’s story.” The others had various reasons for coming over. Lonsdale felt a push to leave the UK, and a pull to LA, inspired by family members living there. For Tieghi-Walker, a former writer and creative director, the move was less planned. A chance meeting with an old school friend led him to a biodynamic winery in Sonoma, before he ended up in LA via an old barn in Berkeley. For Wales, the move was more business-minded: “The jewellery market is so much more buoyant here than in the UK.”
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