Rosy Wilde

Rosy Wilde in 2006 was above the Ann Summers shop in Wardour Street, London

The Rosy Wilde gallery^[1] was an artist-run project space,^[2] established in 2003 by British artist Stella Vine in a former butcher's shop in east London to showcase work by emerging artists.^[3] Vine was not making money and was expecting bailiffs,^[4] when a painting by her of Diana, Princess of Wales, was bought from a colleague's gallery^[5][6] by Charles Saatchi to star in his New Blood show.^[7] This led to further sales for Vine.^[5] She sold the gallery at auction in October 2004.^[8] In 2006, after she had had "her fingers burnt"^[9] by the commercial gallery world,^[9] where, she said, "you will get shafted, fucked over left, right and centre", she reopened the gallery in central London's Soho district.^[9]

East End of London

Stella Vine ran the Rosy Wilde gallery

Stella Vine sold her council house, which she had bought with money from working as a stripper, and purchased a disused butcher's shop, which she converted into a gallery.^[10] In August 2003, she opened the Rosy Wilde gallery,^[1] an artist-run project space,^[2] to showcase the work of emerging artists,^[11] at 139 Whitecross Street in the East End of London,^[12] giving it "immediate Brit Art cache", according to the Evening Standard; Jessica Lack of The Guardian said it was "small but well formed". The Times journalist, Andrew Billen, said the street was "bohemianised" but had remained working class.^[13] Vine said she loved "the cosmopolitan chaos" of the area.^[14] She lived above the gallery,^[15] whilst her son Jamie used the basement to do what(?).^[13]

In November 2003, Vine was in shock over her mother's recent death.^[14] She was also experiencing rejection in her private life:^[14] "I was just falling in love right, left and centre with these gorgeous young artists who came in the gallery. They’d see this fat old stripper, this nutter who runs a butcher’s shop that she thinks is an art gallery, and who thinks she’s some artist but hasn’t even been to art school... They probably thought, "Christ, who is this woman who’s texting me 20 times a day?"^[14] In 2009, Vine said, "In the beginning it was a real battle to assert any kind of intelligence at all." She said that she poured out her emotions in interviews and came across as "a bit wild"; her mother had just died and "you are in a bit of a crazy place after something like that."^[16]

After her mother's death in 2003, Stella Vine painted 30 pictures of Diana, Princess of Wales

Instead of sleeping, she was staying up at night painting in a badly-ventilated room, where the thick linseed oil, turps and paint fumes, which were "probably a bit dangerous", made her "a bit high".^[14] She had become obsessed with the story in the press that Diana, Princess of Wales, had written to the princess's butler, Paul Burrell, telling him that she was afraid she would be killed in a car crash.^[14] Vine painted 30 pictures of Diana, but, lacking space to dry or store them, she put them all except one in a skip.^[14] This painting, Hi Paul Can You Come Over, which showed Diana with "blood pouring from her mouth"^[17] and begging Burrell for help,^[7] was, said Catherine Deveney in Scotland on Sunday, "about two women. One who lived in Kensington Palace. And the other who lives down the Whitecross Street."^[14] Vine said about it, "I also see myself."^[14]

On 28 November 2003, Gina Birch of rock band The Raincoats performed live at the opening of group show Fanclub,^[18] curated by Cathy Lomax.^[19] The gallery web site said, "Rosy Wilde opens the door and invites you into her teenage bedroom":^[19]

Fanclub delves into the psyche of the fan, presenting a series of works by artists who are prepared to give themselves over and examine their obsessions.^[19]

The City and Islington News said the "upstairs of the Rosy Wilde gallery is transformed into one such teenager's bedroom"^[20] for the Fanclub exhibition. The joint show included eight young artists who "littered" two floors with their art work, conjuring up the sense of fan "memorabilia" of icons such as Prince, PJ Harvey, Billy Fury, Brian Wilson, and Elvis Presley,^[20] delving into the "psyche of the besotted fan". Lomax's painting of a group of crazed fans was described as "touching", and Yolanda Zappaterra's work as "tongue in cheek". The exhibition summed up as being "successful as a self indulgent wallow in the nostalgia of our formative years."^[20]

Vine was finding funds through occasional stripping and "seeing sugar daddies a couple of nights a week,"^[21] but was "on the verge of giving up because I wasn't making any money."^[4] She had not paid any business rates for a year,^[15] and was expecting the arrival of bailiffs.^[4] She thought that no one liked what she was doing.^[4]

Saatchi purchase

Vine exhibited her sole remaining painting of Diana,^[14] Hi Paul Can You Come Over, in February 2004 at the Transition Gallery in North London, run by Lomax, from whom Vine's painting was bought by Charles Saatchi^[5][6] to star in his forthcoming show New Blood.^[7] The money from the purchase went directly to the bailiff, Mr Quinn;^[15] the bailiffs, acting for Islington London Borough Council, gave Vine an additional month's grace to pay the amount outstanding, after they had heard of the Saatchi's purchase,^[5] which Vine said had transformed her life.^[5] She was "bombarded" with phone calls from galleries wanting to show her work and from art collectors seeking to cash in on the "Saatchi effect";^[5] within a week she had sold six paintings.^[5] Saatchi also bought more work from her.^[14] Vine said, "I can paint and pay the bills. I don’t need any more than that."^[14]

Deveney visited the gallery; Vine "cheerfully"^[14] told her, "It's a tip."^[14] Deveney said it was "fascinating, like being placed slap bang in the middle of a person’s entire life"^[14] with the walls whitewashed and employed as an improvised diary—"Tuesday 4pm" written in black above the bed—^[14] large pink cushions on the big bed, boxes, papers, suitcases and propped-up canvases on the floor, a loaded clothes rail, and art materials on a table.^[14]

2003–2004, the Rosy Wilde gallery was in Whitecross Street, London EC1.

The Times journalist, Andrew Billen, visited Vine in June 2004, and said the gallery was a clue that "Saatchi's Midas touch has not turned Stella's life to gold."^[13] On the day of his visit, the front door was partly open to allow a street seller to keep his goods inside the "scuffed" gallery space, which was empty except for a gas cooker covered in graffiti text from the poetry of Sylvia Plath.^[13] He said her son's basement accommodation was "dark dungeon quarters"^[13] accessible by an oubliette, and "upstairs festers a beyond-squalid kitchen".^[13] Vine's bedroom was on the next floor and reachable by a ladder to replace the stairs which had fallen down.^[13]

Her studio on the first floor contained a Mac laptop computer, a chair, and a cat sitting on an old mattress on white-painted floorboards.^[13] Billen said, "This is not cheerful artistic anarchy; it is emotional chaos."^[13] The studio walls were covered with work from her show Prozac and Private Views, including Catherine Deneuve on circular wood, and images of Denis and Margaret Thatcher, Geri Halliwell, Kitten from Big Brother and Vine's aunt Ella.^[13]

By June 2004, Vine had stopped answering phone calls, as she was in debt for £80,000, excluding money due on the property, and "It seems every call I get now is from someone saying I owe them money."^[22] She listed the debts as comfort shopping on credit cards, loans, council tax, her car and parking fines, and said she found this very depressing: "I am a very depressed, manic person."^[22] The media attention following Saatchi's purchase of her Diana painting had left Vine depressed and even suicidal:^[23] she said the "tremendous love" she had for her son Jamie had kept her going.^[24]

On 1 July 2004, the show James Jessop and Jasper Joffe opened.^[25] The Evening Standard reviewed the show, commenting that Jessop, who worked as a Group 4 security guard for his day job, had exhibited alongside Vine in Saatchi's New Blood exhibition and that his talent was for speed painting^[26] having once exhibited 72 canvasses created in 72 hours.^[26] Jessica Lack said in The Guardian of the show: "Bright, splattered and buzzing with energy, the paintings of these two young artists will certainly challenge your visual senses".^[27]

Closing

A previous partner paid Vine a surprise visit, which she found emotionally disturbing.^[24] When he moved to Spain,^[24] she sold her property, then moved to a rundown Spanish farmhouse with her son Jamie, their cat and £20,000 worth of paint and canvas.^[24] She said, "It was typical Stella, running away when things get tough."^[24] The gallery went at auction, in October 2004, for £330,000, which the agents Savills said was "quite bullish for the area",^[8]

Soho

Vine re-opened Rosy Wilde in 2006, above the Ann Summers shop in Wardour Street, London.

In 2006,^[9] Vine re-opened the Rosy Wilde gallery, this time on the floor above the first Ann Summers sex shop, in Soho, London, at 79 Wardour Street, with the entrance in Tisbury Court.^[28] She held exhibitions for artists such as Jemima Brown whose show at Rosy Wilde was described as "spooky and unhinged".^[29] Other artists to exhibit were Annabel Dover, Cathy Lomax and Michael Crowe whilst show titles included Force Fed Brown Bread, Lux, Give Me Your Blacklisted and Vignettes.^[30]

Vine said that whenever she had been offered gallery representation the arrangement had broken down, and that "The art world is really exactly the same as the sex industry: you have to be completely on guard, you will get shafted, fucked over left, right and centre."^[9] She qualified on Saatchi, saying he had acted "entirely honourably".^[31]

She said that her priority was independence, which was the only context in which she was able to function viably as an artist, so that she preferred "running a cottage industry and maybe earning £50,000 a year" to earning hundreds of thousands but at the cost of participating in a manipulative system and losing independence of action.^[9]

Exhibitions

See also

• Whitecross Street Market
• Arty magazine

Notes and references

External links

• Rosy Wilde Gallery (historic site)
• Rosy Wilde at MySpace.com (historic site)
• Oriana Fox's exhibition at Rosy Wilde
• Stella Vine official website

v t e Stella Vine Main articles The art of Stella Vine • Talks and collaborations by Stella Vine • Charitable work by Stella Vine • Charles Thomson, Stella Vine, and the Stuckists Own gallery Rosy Wilde Galleries shown in Transition Gallery • Saatchi Gallery • Modern Art Oxford See also Arty

Coordinates: 51°30′45″N 0°08′00″W / 51.5124°N 0.1333°W / 51.5124; -0.1333