What a difference a day makes: 'After my six months in India I sold everything to return there'

Photographer Jo Kemp first set foot in India, aged just 20. More than 4,000 miles from her Shropshire home, she knew her life had changed forever. She tells Helen O’Callaghan what exactly it was about India that mattered so much for her — both spiritually and as an artist

Photographer Jo Kemp first set foot in India, aged just 20.

I grew up in Bradford, which is strongly multicultural. I was always going to the Bombay Stores, feeling it to be the most colourful store in the world — all the saris, bangles. 

In Bradford, we had the best curry houses in England. It was natural for me then to embrace the food, the colours, to be intrigued by India.

I went to India at 20 — naively, with little knowledge, just knowing I wanted to go. I’d done some travelling, I was a model — I’d been to Japan, got a taste for adventure.

I was quite a free spirit, a bit of a punk, really into fashion — at my careers meeting at school, I said I was going to have a clothing label. Not possible with my skillset, they said. I wasn’t studying anything that would help such a career. 

I was blessed to have a mother who always said, ‘You can do whatever you want’. Growing up I was a horse rider. I had a horse, but was one of the only kids without a horse-box — my mum was a single, working-class mother. 

So I would ride to the shows, three hours. And my mum would say, ‘You can win this’. And I did win, often. So I learned early on that grit, determination and vision could get you anywhere really. 

Arriving in India, stepping just two feet off the plane, I met a kind of heat I’d never experienced in my life. An assault on the senses — the heat, all the smells, cacophony of noise, so much, no respite… An elephant walking around the corner, a cow on the same street, incredible array of coloured powders used for the daily rituals. 

So many women wearing real flowers in their hair. Amazing richness of colours, bright orange — marigold a real thing you see all the time. Walking down a typical street, smells of incense, spices.

And sounds, a lot from the temples, distant chanting, prayer. There’s a sense of divinity in the people, a sense they have of something beyond themselves.

At that young age, I found my first yoga and meditation teacher. I had this very deep experience of living in ashrams, studying all things related to yoga and spirituality. I wanted to understand more about myself, about life.

Jo Kemp: 'If I hadn’t found myself in India, I’d have felt limited and frustrated by any conventional life.'

Quite quickly after arriving in India, I felt I’d stepped into what would be my favourite place in the world and that I had landed home. After six months, my visa going to run out, I knew I was just going to come back. 

I went back to Shropshire, sold my clothes — this posh futon bed I had — to help finance returning to India, exploring a life there.

Looking back — I’m 57 now — I think, yeah, you were super brave. I don’t know how I did it. How my mum managed not to be worried sick about me. Because she didn’t say, ‘You can’t just go off to India'. She said, ‘Go for it’. 

For 10 years, India was my base. In the meditation hall one day, my teacher asked, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I don’t know’. She asked it again. It was a profound moment. I said, ‘I think I’m going to Rajasthan to learn how to make jewellery’.

It was very random. I’d had no plan; I completely surprised myself. She said, ‘Yes, do that’. And I did, learned everything to know about stones and silver, set up a jewellery label. And it’s like she gave me her blessing because it became a huge success for that time, for the age I was.

Jo Kemp: 'I couldn’t be anything other than an artist, a creative. I’m not very good at thinking; I’m good at feeling.'

What India tapped into — I’m a bit of a seeker, spiritually. There’s a sense of spirituality in India. There’s chaos. At the same time, it’s incredibly tranquil. I can get very still and quiet in the midst of that chaos.

I need a lot of visual stimulation, and get a lot of visual pleasure from looking at people, colours, patterns. On the tube, I’m looking at people’s socks, the book they’re reading, the colour and design on the cover. India is visually very stimulating — it feeds that in me.

India is not a walk in the park. You meet challenges all the time in the normal day-to-day. You could queue for two hours to get a train ticket, get to the front, and the seller says, ‘Sorry, I’m going for lunch’ – you say, ‘Can I be right here when you get back?’. And they say, ‘No, you have to start the queue again’.

I’m a person with a lot of forward momentum, a lot of energy. These kinds of challenges have given me a high capacity and tolerance for difficult situations. I’m so glad India happened to me at a young age. It made me quite a patient, solution-based person.

I couldn’t be anything other than an artist, a creative. I’m not very good at thinking; I’m good at feeling. If I hadn’t found myself in India, I’d have felt limited and frustrated by any conventional life.

I don’t really believe we are in control. Essentially, trusting in life, in the bigger picture, has helped me take risks, helped me believe in art.

• Former fashion model and yoga-and-meditation teacher Jo Kemp unveils a collection of her experimental abstract images at the Art Evolve fair in the RDS this weekend. Art Evolve sees 60 galleries and artists curating the very best in Irish and international contemporary art under one roof — from March 27-29.