Rose Wylie RA (b. 1934), Silent Light (film notes), 2008. Courtesy of Jerwood Collection. © the artist. Courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner, London
Step inside the studio of Rose Wylie RA (b. 1934), where painting unfolds through scale, instinct, and an ongoing process of looking.
Working from her home in Kent, Wylie creates large, often unstretched canvases, building compositions that draw on memory, observation, and fragments of everyday life. Her paintings develop gradually: images are added, reworked, and sometimes shifted across the surface, allowing space and timing to play an active role in the final work.
Her visual language is deliberately pared back. Figures, text, and forms appear with a directness that feels immediate, yet the compositions reveal a careful awareness of rhythm, placement, and balance. What may first appear spontaneous is underpinned by a sustained process of decision-making and revision.
Wylie’s studio is also part of a longer artistic dialogue. She was married to, and worked alongside, Roy Oxlade (1929-2014), and this shared context of making and thinking continues to shape how her work is understood today.
Wylie has a longstanding connection with Jerwood. She was shortlisted for the Jerwood Painting Prize in 1997, included in Give and Take at Jerwood Space in 2000, and shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize in 2002. In 2012, her solo exhibition Big Boys Sit at the Front became the inaugural exhibition at Jerwood Gallery in Hastings.
In Jerwood Collection, Wylie’s Silent Light (film notes), 2008, Self Portrait with Shut Mouth, 2017 and Robin Walking Away, 2013 are held alongside Roy Oxlade’s Profile & Brushes, 1984–85, bringing together two distinct yet closely connected practices.
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