Rose Wylie’s paintbrush explores many terrains. From the everyday to the supernatural; motifs are rendered in crude, childlike quality. Wylie is an octogenarian artist who has recently entered the fray with large-scale painterly works that explore the meaning of the ‘artless’ image. Her solo-exhibition, Dressed to Kill presents a new body of paintings and related works on paper at Berlin’s VW (VeneKlasen/Werner).
A graduate of the Folkestone & Dover School of Art, Wiley moved to London during her early career but enigmatically disappeared from the art-world’s radar for nearly two decades. After completing an MA at London’s Royal College of Art in 1981 she began to enjoy a cult following, her larger-than-life canvases crammed with jubilant anarchy and vivacious colour.
The Kent-based artist is interested in depicting shared ideologies in her work; observations gleaned from popular culture or current affairs – Kate Moss poised in pants, the majestic courtly paintings of Robert Peake and Tarantino films. Often re-working fragments of her memory, Wiley’s perceptive portraits seem intentionally unassuming, delicately naive, yet they also skilfully convey personhood with startling accuracy. Surprised Boy Meets Girl (2015) has a mischievous buoyancy that would surely tease a wry smile from the most severe of her critics.
In her typical off-kilter aesthetic, floating heads and naked ladies can be seen cavorting with loose fragments of text that spell out nonsensical phrases. Wylie’s independent spirit and personality is tangible within her painting. Fond of contradictions, she rejects traditional painting techniques; proportion is skewed and picture planes are flat. Using slap-dash painting techniques, Wiley thickly daubs paint onto sizeable burlap canvas – a distinctive trait that draw parallels with Phillipe Guston’s late quasi-cartoonish paintings.
Simultaneously energetic and sensitive, her work continues to evolve, drawing on visions of past and present with the same characterful exuberance. Rose Wiley will not be dictated to by fashion – a refreshing stance in the age of conformity.
Rose Wylie: Dressed to Kill is showing at VW (VeneKlasen/Werner) until 16 January 2016
