Stella Vine (born Melissa Jane Robson, 1969) is an English artist, who lives and works in London. Her work is figurative painting, with subjects drawn from personal life, as well as from rock stars, royalty, and other celebrities.

In 2001, she was exhibited by the Stuckists group, which she joined for a short time; she was married briefly to the group co-founder, Charles Thomson.

In 2003, she opened her own gallery Rosy Wilde in East London. In 2004, Charles Saatchi bought Hi Paul can you come over I'm really frightened (2003), a painting of Diana, Princess of Wales, which provoked media controversy, as did a subsequent purchase of a painting of drug victim Rachel Whitear.

Later work has featured Kate Moss as a subject, as in Holy water cannot help you now (2005). In 2006, she re-opened her gallery in Soho, London.

The first major show of her work was held in 2007 at Modern Art Oxford. In the same year, Vine designed clothing for Topshop.

Early life

Stella Vine was born Melissa Jane Robson in Alnwick, Northumberland, England in 1969. She changed her name to "Stella Vine" in 1995, inspired by Andy Warhol. Vine lived with her mother, a seamstress, and her grandmother, a secretary. Her mother remarried when she was seven, and they relocated to Norwich. When she was a child, she used to make water colours in the library, painting Queen Victoria, and copying the Pre-Raphaelites and Greek Mythology. During this time, she entered a relationship with a 24-year-old caretaker, and, at the age of 17, gave birth to a son, Jamie. Vine moved into a home for single parents and then relocated to London, where Vine joined the National Youth Theatre of Britain in 1983, and the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts in 1987.

Vine lived with musician Ross Newell, "the love of her life" for over four years, but "stupidly" left him for another relationship; two years later she wanted to restart the relationship with Newell, but he no longer trusted her. Describing how she decided to become an artist and what inspired her, Vine said a "wonderful ex-boyfriend" called Ross had always told her she should become a painter, and that she had always made "crazy doodles".

Career

Early work

For five years Vine performed as an actress, touring provincial theatres around the United Kingdom, Januszczak said that this was the moment Vine "realised how much prettiness was possible in art". The themes of Vine's painting focus on memory, nostalgia and fairy tales. Vine frequently draws inspiration from her private life, painting from photographs and her memory. The theme of autobiography first surfaced

thumb|Stella Vine (right) with Charlotte Gavin (left) and [[Joe Machine at the Vote Stuckist show in 2001. in June 2000, she went to a talk given by him and fellow Stuckist co-founder, Charles Thomson, on Stuckism. She met Thomson On 4 June, she took part in a Stuckist demonstration. On 10 July, she renamed her group The Unstuckists. In October, there was a Vine painting in the first Stuckist show in Paris. two days later they had an intense row; They split up after about two months, Thomson said that this had been part of a business arrangement to promote themselves as an art couple, and that there had been no condition of marriage.

In October 2006, The Stuckist group show, Go West, at Spectrum London gallery, included two paintings by Thomson, which were "explicit images of his ex-wife." Vine said she had no comment.

Vine's mother, who had been ill with Crohn's disease, died suddenly from bowel cancer around this time which led to Vine's high creative drive and the creation of her darkest paintings.

In 2002 – 2003, Vine studied Philosophical Aesthetics with Johnathan Lahey Dronsfield at Birkbeck College whilst also attending the course Performance After Warhol with Professor Gavin Butt in 2002, and Women's Work with Kathy Battista at Tate Modern. She said she also found much of her art education through the Serpentine Gallery bookshop and became involved with East London artist-run galleries. Vine lived and worked in a studio above the artist-run gallery on the first floor above the first Ann Summers sex shop in Soho, London. The gallery closed some years later.

The Saatchi effect

thumb|Vine's portrait of [[Diana, Princess of Wales, Hi Paul can you come over I'm really frightened (2003), was bought by Charles Saatchi.]]

Art collector Charles Saatchi discovered Vine's painting in a show called Girl on Girl in Cathy Lomax's Transition Gallery. He purchased Vine's painting of Diana, Princess of Wales Hi Paul can you come over I'm really frightened (2003), for £600 (Vine had originally wanted to price her paintings at £100 each). The painting portrayed the Princess with heavy eyes and blood from her lips. The work's title came from the thick red text painted across the canvas, a reference to Diana's butler Paul Burrell. She painted as many as 30 of Diana alone, having become fascinated by conspiracy theories into the Princess' tragic car crash which she had read on the Internet. and as Saatchi anticipated, much of the media attacked the work in his New Blood exhibition, creating a considerable return in publicity for his investment. Media coverage focused on the controversial nature of the painting, as well as the fact that the painting had been bought for only £600 from an unknown artist, who was a single mother and an ex-stripper.

In February 2004, after Vine "rose to fame after being championed by Charles Saatchi", her ex-husband Charles Thomson said that it was he and the Stuckists, not Saatchi, who had "discovered" Vine.

On 28 March 2004, Thomson reported Saatchi to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) for alleged breaches of the Competition Act and cited as an example Saatchi's promotion of Vine. The OFT did not uphold the complaint. In September 2004, Vine threatened suicide if her work was included in The Stuckists Punk Victorian show at the Liverpool Biennial; the owner of the painting withdrew it.

A subsequent purchase by Saatchi of Vine's painting of Rachel Whitear (also with blood running from the mouth) created further media reaction, as Whitear was a former drug user, whose body was due for exhumation. Vine refused to acquiesce to the parents and police's request not to exhibit the painting, then on view in the Saatchi Gallery in the New Blood show during March 2004. Richard Dorment, The Daily Telegraph critic, described the work as "another stab at creating the visual equivalent of tabloid journalism."

In September 2004, Vine went back to her home town of Alnwick, where she donated 3 paintings to the Bailiffgate Museum collection, the local museum. Two of the paintings were autobiographical. One painting called The Rumbling Kurn (2003) shows part of the Alnwick shoreline near Howick beach, whilst 27 Clayport Gardens (2004) depicts Vine in a pram as a child "outside her grandmother's old house". The third work depicts Catherine Deneuve in the film Belle de Jour (1968) called Belle (2004) is a painting with collage, including a pink satin ribbon and a small cut out ink jet print of a bee, stuck onto the painting. The name Belle is painted in red across the circular board. to put on a solo show there There followed solo shows in Israel, Los Angeles, London and New York. She was included in the second Prague Biennale. Also in 2005, her solo show of new paintings Stellawood was staged at Tim Jefferies' gallery in Mayfair, London. At this time, Vine collaborated with the artist James Jessop for the exhibition Fame at the This Way Up Gallery above the Dragon Bar in East London. The installation of paintings was based on the New York graffiti scene of the 1980s, including depictions of Fab Five Freddy, Keith Haring and Blondie.

In July 2005, Vine made a painting of the No. 30 London bus which had been destroyed by a suicide bomber in Tavistock Square, outside her Bloomsbury flat during the 7 July 2005 London bombings. Vine painted over the artwork almost as soon as she had made it, as she found the work "simply too disturbing". Vine compared the supermodel to the Mona Lisa and said: "There's a bravery in Kate's eyes." Vine herself admitted to a four-month cocaine addiction. She said, "I had been painting Kate Moss for a long time, both before the time of her crisis and during it. I felt very strongly for her—she's a hard-working mum and it seemed as if suddenly the world turned against her."

In the February 2009 issue of Gay Times, Vine discussed the 'tabloid frenzy' and media scrutiny that followed Saatchi collecting her work in 2004: "In the beginning it was a real battle to assert any kind of intelligence at all."

Other works and exhibitions

thumb|180px|left|Stella Vine. Holy water cannot help you now, a painting of [[Kate Moss.]]

Vine has created art installations and sculpture using found objects. In the work Girl in Lourdes (2004), Vine created an installation using found objects such as a mannequin, a dress, a wig, a prayer book, holy water, a Lourdes candle, a found Lourdes souvenir, a Virgin Mary figurine, a table with flowers in a jam jar. A wall painting with the slogan Hotel Saint Bernadette accompanied the work and the mannequin had also been painted on by the artist. Another work Sylvia cooker (2004), Vine painted poems by Sylvia Plath in enamel onto a found gas cooker, Vine said: "I have always been ambitious, no doubt about that. I always felt like I had to reach the dizzy heights of fame and success or whatever the heights are of a number of given professions I have dabbled in, to prove myself, "Stripper of the year", a Bafta or whatever, for me it was by creating something interesting and entertaining or moving, but not by compromising the thing I was creating, that thing had to reach those heights, I guess it's about being accepted and loved a bit or a lot."

In 2006, Vine launched Stellacam, which ran all day, every day for a 3-month period, enabling fans to watch her painting at her Bloomsbury studio and home. The webcam feed was streamed live online via her website and at social networking website MySpace. Stellacam had an audience of thousands.

In August 2006, she was featured in the tabloids, when her painting of Celebrity Big Brother stars, Samuel "Ordinary Boy" Preston and Chantelle Houghton, "was used as the invitation to their wedding". Rather than a regular exhibition, Vine painted a large-scale mural across the museum space over a period of five days. The "live painting performance" was filmed and later exhibited alongside the stacked mural as a six-channel video installation showing Vine creating the mural.

From July to September 2007, a major solo show of Vine's work was held at Modern Art Oxford. by giving the museum four of her paintings valued at £46,000. A book accompanied the exhibition, including an essay by Germaine Greer. All of the paintings in the exhibition were sold. and Paul Moody praised her work for "causing a storm in the art world". Arifa Akbar of The Independent compared Vine's examination of the culture of celebrity as coming from the same tradition as pop art founder, Andy Warhol.

In July 2007, Vine collaborated with Topshop clothing chain, creating a limited edition fashion range inspired by her artworks. These included T-shirts with slogans such as Breaks Up With Her Boyfriend. In January 2012, it was announced that Vine would paint a portrait of the Brontë sisters to help raise money for the repair of St Michael and All Angels Parish Church in Haworth, West Yorkshire, where Patrick Brontë was curate.

Charitable work

In 2005, Stella Vine gave three paintings to the Imagine A World exhibition, organised by Amnesty International. In 2006, she donated a painting of John Peel and his wife to an auction for Terrence Higgins Trust. In 2007, she donated a painting to the Spectrum Art auction to raise money to support autistic children. In 2008, Vine created the painting Didier (2008), depicting Didier Drogba, for the charity Sport Relief. Vine also allowed them to create a limited edition print of Didier (2008) to help raise further funds for the charity.

Notable solo shows

  • 2004 Prozac and Private Views, Transition Gallery, London, UK (Goss-Michael Foundation)
  • Roberts Institute of Art
  • Brandes Family Collection, Israel
  • Robert Diament
  • Alexander McQueen and Canada

Notes and references

  • Stella Vine web site
  • Rosy Wilde Gallery (historic site)
  • Stella Vine paintings and CV
  • Stella Vine blogs for Guardian, 2007