Wylie\u2019s canvases are vast, her palette is bold and her subject matter includes iconic women from medieval royalty, literature and contemporary sport. There\u2019s a playfulness in everything she makes, yet she describes herself as \u201cdeeply serious\u201d. Her process seems intense \u2013 she will typically see something that piques her interest, visually, and draws it to make a memory. Later, she will paint it. Wylie admits that she can get stuck and \u201chate\u201d her paintings but that\u2019s nothing that can\u2019t be remedied by \u201cwork and work and work\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here, Rose Wylie talks about her show at the Royal Academy, motherhood, and being a late bloomer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
MA: What does the forthcoming Royal Academy show mean to you?\u00a0<\/p>\n
RW: It\u2019s great! If I ever say to friends that I have a show somewhere, no one\u2019s interested \u2026 all they ever want to know about is if I have a painting in (the RA\u2019s) summer show! The public has huge affection and respect for the Royal Academy. They just love it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
MA: You have been described as a \u2018rebel painter\u2019. How do you respond to that?\u00a0<\/p>\n
RA: Copywriters like to use snappy little words, don\u2019t they? I suppose sometimes the paintings have slightly unusual juxtapositions. But I don\u2019t know if they are talking about my paintings or about me and my attitude. I do have an attitude. My garden isn\u2019t manicured: a lot of people might call my garden out of control. Possibly that\u2019s what they think about my work. That could lead to people calling me a rebel. What do you think? Why do you think they call me a rebel?\u00a0<\/p>\n
MA: I suppose one reason is maybe because of the scale you work at?\u00a0<\/p>\n
RW: But lots of artists work big!\u00a0<\/p>\n
MA: True.<\/p>\n RW: Or maybe they think women should do little chintzy paintings? I won\u2019t do that. My canvases are not stretched and have threads hanging off them. At the edges of the painting, it\u2019s clear where the canvas has been cut. Perhaps that\u2019s what they are getting at. Also, I always wear the same clothes. I think people should wear what they\u2019ve got and cut them up and change them about \u2026 maybe the rebel thing comes from that? I don\u2019t mind being called a rebel \u2013 it\u2019s better than being called stuck in the mud. I am both playful and deeply serious at the same time \u2013 and I don\u2019t know how that goes together. I\u2019m not a precious up-your-arse-painter.\u00a0<\/p>\n MA: And what about \u2018late bloomer\u2019?\u00a0<\/p>\n RW: I don\u2019t mind that. What I don\u2019t like are certain other words that people use about me and my life. I own a house and some journalists who visit like to call it a little cottage. I find that rather irritating: I don\u2019t like having chintzy or domestic narratives attached to me. I\u2019m much more industrial: I like hard white light.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBig is good. It\u2019s a release from being a woman with restricted areas and means. And I think it suggests confidence. You have to have self-belief if you paint big\u201d \u2013 Rose Wylie<\/p>\n MA: Creativity and motherhood aren\u2019t always the happiest of bedfellows. Has it been difficult to do both?\u00a0<\/p>\n RW: No, because when I was a mother, I was being a mother. I\u2019m a mother. Children need you to be there. They don\u2019t want you to be switching off and doing your own thing and disappearing and being obsessed with your own painting. They want you there as an anchoring. Now the children have grown up, they don\u2019t have problems. A lot of artists\u2019 children have problems about being marginalised. Being available was important and I just cut out [painting] and came back to it. It\u2019s most unfair because it should be equal for men and women and it\u2019s not. It\u2019s just a problem for women.\u00a0<\/p>\n MA: Your husband was a painter too. Was that difficult or motivating?\u00a0<\/p>\n RW: We got on extremely well. When I got into painting, he was well known and I wasn\u2019t known at all \u2026<\/p>\n MA: Were you ever jealous?<\/p>\n RW: No. Jealousy is not the word. At first, when curators came to see us both they would spend all their time \u2013 two and a half hours \u2013 with Roy and ten minutes with me. I thought that was totally unfair and I decided to get around this by making sure that if a gallery person came for one of us, the other kept out of the way. That worked out okay and as I got better known Roy was always supportive.\u00a0<\/p>\n MA: Can you tell me a little about your painting process?<\/p>\n RW: It starts when I see something which I think is visually exciting. It\u2019s not about psychology, plot, context or fighting a political point. It\u2019s a visual \u2013 something I like the look of and find exciting and I\u2019ll often do drawings so I can keep it. I work from that to the end of the painting. A painting can be from several drawings and the painting can change until the thing looks like it could look alight. And then I stop. But that can be a long process with a lot of aesthetic discrimination going on. I do a lot of thinking but I\u2019m also impulsive. If it seems okay you leave it, if not, you carry on. I can\u2019t tell you, really. [Laughs].\u00a0<\/p>\n MA: I love your use of colour. Tell me about the shades you choose and how you put them together.<\/p>\n RW: I\u2019m glad you like the colour because nobody else ever mentions it! Some people think you have to use purple, orange, dark red and screaming blue. I use a lot of white with umber in it. Fra Angelico from the Early Renaissance used a lot of umber and white when he put buildings in his paintings. Sometimes I fill the canvas up with the colour first and sometimes I leave the canvas bare and it comes up like the Bayeux Tapestry. If you put a dark colour on first, anything you put on top of it is exciting and exhilarating. I think colour is hugely important.<\/p>\n MA: And what about the scale of your paintings?\u00a0<\/p>\n RW: When I started off, I thought historically important paintings were big, like altar paintings or New York School paintings. I seemed to connect small canvases with women being unprofessional, being secondary, perhaps working in a small room and not having much space. And I thought, \u2018Why not just go for it and have them big?\u2019 I love big! I like Renaissance paintings that go up the wall from ceiling to floor. I love all that. Big is good. It\u2019s a release from being a woman with restricted areas and means. And I think it suggests confidence. You have to have self-belief if you paint big.\u00a0<\/p>\n MA: How do you choose which people will feature in a painting?\u00a0<\/p>\n RW: They don\u2019t need to be a well-known beauty but they have to have something special and unusual about them. With Bette Davis, she has a terrific mouth and those hooded eyes and I think she has presence. I once painted a group of footballers and they all had something about them \u2026 Thierry Henry was languorous and elegant and Ronaldinho \u2013 his hands flicked, his feet flicked, his ponytail flicked. I used all that.\u00a0<\/p>\n MA: Which contemporary painters do you admire?<\/p>\n RW: Kerry James Marshall<\/a> is good. I have liked his work since he first came to England. I very much like Tal R. And Tschabalala Self<\/a>, who I think has great vitality and a streak of marvellous vulgarity \u2026 [her work is] strong and very irreverent. I always rather liked Sarah Lucas<\/a>, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n MA: What advice would you give to any painter starting out?\u00a0<\/p>\n RW: The obvious thing is to keep going. Don\u2019t bother too much about outside opinions \u2013 they\u2019ve never bothered me.<\/p>\n<\/a>
![\"Rose](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/470378.jpeg\")
Rose Wylie, Pink Skater (Will I Win, Will I Win), 2015Courtesy private collection and JARILAGER Gallery. Photograph courtesy Jari Lager. Photo: Soon-Hak Kwon \u00a9 Rose Wylie<\/p>\n<\/a>
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Rose Wylie, Black Strap (Red Fly), 2012Courtesy Charlotte and Philip Colbert. Photograph courtesy Jari Lager. Photo: Soon-Hak Kwon \u00a9 Rose Wylie<\/p>\n<\/a>
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Rose Wylie, Snowwhite (3) with Duster, 2018Private collection \u00a9 Rose Wylie. Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner. Photo: Jo Moon Price<\/p>\n