Stella Vine

Stella Vine's Hi Paul Can You Come Over, portrait of Princess Diana, bought by Charles Saatchi

Stella Vine (born 1969 in Alnwick, Northumberland, England) is an artist and former stripper in London. She rose to prominence in 2004 when Charles Saatchi bought a painting by her of Princess Diana, which provoked media attention worldwide.

Her work has always been strongly figurative with subject matter drawn from either her personal life of family, friends and school, or a glamorous world of rock stars, royalty and celebrities. Although the latter was at first a fantasy escape in stark contrast to her own bleak circumstances, it is now a world she is beginning to inhabit. The images have often contained an explicit or implied insecurity and fear, although more recent paintings are bigger, brighter and more smoothly executed (and their sale price continues to increase).

She has 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.

Early life

She was born Melissa Jane Robson in Alnwick, Northumberland in 1969. Her name was then changed to Melissa Jordan after her step-father's name; she subsequently changed it to Stella Vine, inspired by Andy Warhol names, as "I didn't feel like I belonged to either of my fathers' families." She lived with her mother who was a seamstress and her grandmother who was a secretary. Her mother remarried when she was seven, and they relocated to Norwich. In 1981, she won a silver cup for "most original act" for a mime in a "Junior Startime" talent competition at the Norwich Theatre Royal. After a difficult relationship with her stepfather, she was briefly fostered aged 13, and then moved into a bedsit, where she started a relationship with a 24-year-old caretaker. Two years later she became pregnant. She moved with her baby into a home for single parents called Umberella Housing in Norwich,and then to London, where she had previosly been a member of the NYT (National Youth Theatre of Britain), and the on to theAcademy of Live and Recorded Arts, London, 1987-1990. She worked as a cleaner, waitress, stripper and in hostess clubs. For five years she performed in theatres around the UK, playing Geraldine Barclay in What The Butler Saw by Joe Orton at Theatre Clywd, Pinnochio at The Leeds City Varieties Theatre, and Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop with Durham Theatre Company, and played various lead roles in Agatha Christie plays in repertory theatre. She ran her own improvised theatre company 'Minx Productions', producing , directing, and performing in 'Adult Child Dead Child' by Claire Dowie at The Kings Head in Islington, and Jean Anouilh's 'The Orchestra' at The Cafe Theatre in Covent Garden, and in 1995 formed her band 'Victoria Falls' with guitarist and songwriter Jamie D'Abreu.

File:Vine-Vote-Stuckist.jpg

Stella Vine exhibits her work for the first time, in the Vote Stuckist show at the Fridge Gallery, Brixton, June 2001.

She attended evening classes at Hampstead School of Art in 1999 and a summer course at St Martins where began to paint members of her family, as well as celebrities who fascinated her, such as Mike Leigh, PJ Harvey and Sylvia Plath. She was exhibited for the first time in 2001 in the Vote Stuckist show by the Stuckists art group, with paintings of Sylvia Plath, her step father, a stripper and a life painting from Hampstead School of Art. Then she wanted to form a Stuckist group called the Westminster stuckists and that is what she did. She formed the group, then she changed her mind a bit and she changed the name of the group to the unstuckists. Then she was chosen for the stuckists real Turner prize show, but she decided not to do it at the last minute, so Joe Machine was announced the winner of it. She was'nt doing much work at all before she met Charles Thompson. The she started painting a lot and she also painted at his home, but she doen't want to admit it. A lot of the Stuckists were friends and they said she could be in the show. Now she wants to pretend it didn't happen, but you can't change the past and everybody knows. She is on video in the show. It's on a DVD. There are photos of her in the show. She participated in the group's activities and took part in a demonstration in Trafalgar Square, after which she breifly formed 'The Unstuckists', pro-painting, but not anti-conceptualist. In August 2001 she married Charles Thomson, co-founder of the Stuckists, in New York. They did not live together, and separated after eight weeks.

Recognition

In 2003 she opened the Rosy Wilde gallery in East London in a former butchers shop to show emerging artists. From the verge of bankruptcy, she was catapulted into international prominence and controversy by Charles Saatchi's purchase of her painting of Princess Diana Hi Paul Can You Come Over, showing the Princess with heavy eyes and blood dripping from her lips. Thick red text painted on the canvas said, "Hi Paul can you come over I'm really frightened" (a reference to Diana's butler Paul Burrell).

The combination of Saatchi, Princess Diana and the fact that the painting had been bought for only £600 from an unknown, mainly self-taught artist, who was a single mother and an ex-stripper, provided an irresistible cause célèbre for the mass media. Saatchi discovered the painting in a show called Girl on Girl in Cathy Lomax's Transition Gallery, which is housed in a converted garage in Hackney. Vine had originally wanted to price the painting at £100.

Lomax described this painting:

Stella Vine's work deals with her fascination with the trashy and the dark. Underlying this is a sometimes contradictory love for her subjects. Hi Paul Can You Come Over... examines that pivotal moment in the standing of the British Monarchy, the death of Princess Diana and the horror of her crash. All the conspiracy theories are summed up in this painting as a wild eyed and tiara clad Diana cries for help whilst painterly blood drips from her luscious lips.

A subsequent purchase by Saatchi of Vine's painting of Rachel Whitear (also with blood dripping from the mouth) continued the controversy, as the former drug user's body was due for exhumation. Vine refused to acquiesce to the parents' request, backed by the police, not to exhibit the painting, then on view in the Saatchi Gallery in the perhaps unfortunately named New Blood show. (Saatchi had delegated the decision to her.)

Vine's promotion by Saatchi brought an angry reaction from the Stuckists who claimed that her work had been influenced by theirs, and that both she and Saatchi were benefiting from their ideas without due acknowledgement. Vine hotly disputed that there had been any influence. She and former husband Thomson engaged in artistic and personal recriminations in the media. Thomson reported Saatchi to the OFT (Office of Fair Trading) but the complaint was dismissed. When Saatchi did not include Vine in his Triumph of Painting shows in 2005, The Independent newspaper suggested that this was the result of his embarrassment over the Stuckist furore. Vine said that there was not a rift and that Saatchi had commissioned her for more work. Stella new Thomson briefly and only breifly involved herself in the group, as a friend she was told she did not have to agree with their ideas... she did not, only to like painting. She was inspired from an early age by a vast array of artists, including Balthus, Vangogh, Jeff Koons, Warhol to name but a few, long lists mentioned in several articles.

In 2004 Stella appeared on Womens Hour on Radio 4 with Jenni Murray.

Holy Water Cannot Help You Now by Stella Vine

The sudden exposure to media attention and often virulent criticism left Vine confused, depressed and even suicidal, as well as in financial difficulties. Despite her new-found fame she was forced to sell her gallery. She travelled abroad to escape the pressure of publicity and taught art to children in Spain. She moved back to her home town of Alnwick (where she presented work to the local Bailiffgate museum), and then to a flat near the British Museum in London. She emerged from this uncertain period with a series of successful solo shows in Israel, Los Angeles, London & New York, and group shows including the Prague Biennale II 2005.

In 2005, she had a sell-out show Stellawood at Tim Jefferies' Hamilton Gallery in West London. Then her painting 'Hi Paul can you come over...' was nominated as one of the ten worst paintings in Britain in The Guardian. Shortly after, a new painting of Princess Diana, 'Murdered, pregnant and embalmed', by Vine was bought by George Michael for £25,000, according to The Sun newspaper which condemned it as "sick". An image of Kate Moss, Holy water cannot help you now', has been widely reproduced in the media, also an earlier Kate Moss painting 'I only make love to Jesus' was bought by the designer and friend of Kate's, Alexander McQueen. Moss has also appeared in other Vine paintings showing images of the model's alleged cocaine use 'Must be the season of the witch'. Vine herself admitted to a cocaine addiction.

Vine was a curator for the Noise Festival, a festival of art for under 25 year olds, launched at Tate Liverpool in April 2006. In June 2006, she gave a talk at Tate Modern on a painting by Balthus. In August 2006, she was again 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.

A solo show of new work has been announced for July 2007 at Modern Art Oxford.

She has reacted against her experiences in the commercial gallery world, saying, "The art world is really the same as the sex industry: you have to be completely on guard, you will get shafted, fucked over left, right and centre." As a result, she re-opened her Rosy Wilde gallery, this time on the first floor above the first Ann Summers sex shop in Soho.

She now lives in a flat in Bloomsbury, opposite the British Museum, feeling at home with the historic character of the area. She continues with an erratic, bohemian life, using a local cafe as her office.

Polite Cards have recently launched (Jan 2007) a new range of Stella Vine's works in art museums, galleries and book shops around the world.

Bibliography:The Evening Standard, Flash Art, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The Independent, The Observer, The Sun, The Daily Star, The Mail on Sunday, The Mirror, ID, Vogue, Telma Celeste, Art Review, Time Out, Black Book Magazine, People Magazine, Heat, Closer, You Magazine, Scotland on Sunday, Marie Claire, Hello Magazine, The Art Newspaper, Washington Post, Detroit News , Prozac and Private Views catalogue Transition Gallery 2004, The Guardian,

Criticism

Vine's work has not been well received by many critics. David Lee, the editor of The Jackdaw, called her a "brainless rotten painter" and Richard Dorment, The Daily Telegraph critic, wrote her off: "It's trash. It is another stab at creating the visual equivalent of tabloid journalism." However, Waldemar Januszczak, The Sunday Times critic, who singled her out for praise in his otherwise hostile review of the Saatchi Gallery's New Blood show, has continued to champion her: "although I didn’t much want to like Vine’s contribution, I found I did. It had something." He saw "a combination of empathy and cynicism that can be startling."

See also

• Saatchi Gallery
• Transition Gallery
• Cathy Lomax
• Charles Thomson
• Stuckism

References

• The Stuckists (2004) Punk Victorian. National Museums Liverpool. ISBN 1-902700-27-9. Stella Vine, page 23.

External links

• Stella Vine web site
• Rosy Wilde Gallery (historic site)
• Stella Vine paintings and CV
• Saatchi buys Diana painting. Daily Telegraph, 24 February 2004
• Whitear painting controversy, The Guardian 16 March 2004
• Stuckists claim influence on Vine's work
• In depth feature on Vine, including attacks on ex husband Thomson. The Scotsman, 14 March 2004
• Thomson refutes Vine's attacks
• Feature on Vine, including different critiques on her art, BBC 27 August 2005
• Fogless Interview