Although Britt Boutros-Ghali is a seminal figure in postwar abstraction and has always been shown internationally, she is fairly unknown in the UK. Her body of work spans more than six decades, and now, in her 88th year and not showing any signs of slowing down, she has created a series of new ambitious works, which will be shown this October at Varvara Roza Galleries in her first UK solo show.
The Egyptian-Norwegian painter was born in 1937 in the fishing town of Svolvær in northern Norway, and has built a career that resists simple categorisation. For more than five decades, she has worked across continents, cultures, and styles, producing a body of work that is at once abstract, expressive, and deeply personal.
She has described herself as an “action painter”, and at the core of her practice is a commitment to gestural abstraction. Her canvases are large, dynamic, and unapologetically physical. Brushstrokes zoom across the surface, paint is layered thickly or scraped back, and textures emerge from the paint. The result is an art of crackling energy, of movement, and of vitality.
Growing up above the Arctic Circle, Boutros-Ghali experienced the dramatic Norwegian landscapes and the long winter nights and bright summer days. She talks about the rawness of nature: the seas, the mountains, the shifting skies, influencing the way she would later layer her paintings. Then, in the mid-1970s, she moved to Egypt, where she has since lived and worked. And here’s where we see the colours of Egypt: The desert sands, the Nile and the Red Sea, and the brilliant light of the Mediterranean. It’s the duality of those cultures that makes her work so full of life.
At the core of Boutros-Ghali’s practice is a commitment to gestural abstraction, but it is that duality that I find so interesting about her work, the mix of cultures, that we can clearly see in both the colour and the form of her huge canvases, which are dynamic and unapologetically physical, towering over Boutros-Ghali in studio photos. Brushstrokes surge across the surface, paint is layered thickly or scraped back, and textures emerge that invite us not just to look but to feel the energy and the movement.
Recognition has come steadily over the years. In addition to a Norwegian knighthood, in 2023 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Egypt’s National Council for Women, acknowledging both her artistic contributions and the inspiration she has provided to generations of female artists in the region. Her exhibitions are international in scope, with recent shows at Galerie Son in Berlin and Seoul bringing her work to new audiences.
Boutros-Ghali continues to paint with undiminished vigour. This longevity itself is remarkable, and her practice is a reminder that art is not simply about youth or novelty but about persistence and tenacity – a lifelong commitment to exploring form and colour.
One of the paintings in the show that she created in her 88th year, “Untitled No 09” (pictured here), is so alive and fresh and dynamic, her energy literally leaps out of the painting. It is a testament to a spirit that refuses to fade, a spirit that we should have seen in London before.
Boutros-Ghali’s art cannot be neatly boxed into a movement or a geography. It is the work of an artist who has lived between worlds and made that in-betweenness her strength.
I’ve never met her in person, but standing in front of her paintings, enveloped in her restless and luminous energy, I feel her.
LIFE IN COLOUR: BRITT BOUTROS-GHALI, Varvara Roza Galleries 2 October – 20 October 2025
8 Duke Street, St. James’s, London, SW1Y 6BN
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