Girl and Spiders Press

Rose Wylie

Girl and Spiders

April 2 – May 9, 2015
Opening reception: Thursday, April 2, 6-8:30 pm
 
Thomas Erben is pleased to present the gallery’s second solo exhibition with British painter Rose Wylie. Since What with What, which introduced Wylie to the US audience in 2010, she has received wide recognition, including a solo exhibition at Tate Britain. In 2014, she won the John Moores Painting Prize, one of the foremost art awards in the UK. Featuring a broad selection of works on paper, Girl and Spiders allows insight into how Wylie condenses a vast stream of images and impressions into unmistakably personal drawings.

In Rose Wylie’s work, people, animals and objects – unlabored, but very complete – combine with patches of color and bits of painted text. These elements come from a variety of sources: cinema, newspapers, tabloids, television, art history, and people she meets. Often working from memory, Wylie is not interested in overarching themes or stories – her focus is on the particular, the detail, the specific visual moment that made an emotional impact and stuck in her mind.

An important aspect of Wylie’s work is her unusual use of paper, which she collages to expand the surface of a drawing, correct it, or emphasize a certain area. By covering ‘mistakes’ with pieces of paper on which she makes her revisions, she also highlights her process of gradually finding the rendition closest to her recollection. This, along with the immediacy and freedom of Wylie's lines and brushstrokes, conveys a peculiar balance between the casual and the considered. She has the sense to know exactly when an imperfection needs correcting, and when it is just right.

Rose Wylie (b. 1934, Kent, UK) attended the Folkestone & Dover School of Art until 1956 and received her MA from the Royal College of Art, London in 1981. She has had numerous solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2015); Städtische Galerie, Wolfsburg (2014); Tate Britain (2013); The Haugar Museum, Tønsberg (2013); and Jerwood Gallery, Hastings (2012). Gallery solo exhibitions include Choi&Lager Galerie, Cologne (2014); Michael Janssen, Berlin (2013); Regina Gallery, Moscow (2011 and 2012); and Union Gallery, London (2006 onwards). Her work is included in public collections such as the Arts Council of England; Contemporary Art Society, London; Jerwood Foundation; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; Norwich Gallery; Tate Britain; and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. The artist lives and works in Newnham-Sittingbourne, United Kingdom.