Tired of the short-term tenant’s lot, artist Enrico David started searching for a permanent base where he could both live and work. Aptly enough, it was a former yoga studio in London’s East End that offered him – a man fascinated with anthropoidal forms – the most flexible space. After buying then divvying up the entire building with friends, he and his boyfriend moved into the third floor, where they lithely enjoy bucolic-ish views across Bethnal Green’s tree and rooftops. No downward-facing digs these, chants Emily King.
Growing up in the Italian port city of Ancona, Enrico David was pulled towards 1980s London, where he studied at Central Saint Martins before graduating into the Britart bubble of 1994. After leaving art school, he bounced between short term lets. 'I was in these beautiful Victorian houses for, like, £16 pounds a week,' he says. 'I would use my house as a studio, but I didn't want to have dusty, smelly materials in my home, so I started working with textiles as a soft way to live with the art.'
