Stella Vine
| Stella Vine | |
|---|---|
Stella Vine in 2001
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| Born |
Melissa Jane Robson 1969 Alnwick, Northumberland, England |
| Nationality | English |
| Education | Academy of Live and Recorded Arts |
| Known for | Painting |
Stella Vine (born Melissa Jane Robson, 1969) is an English artist, who lives and works in London. Her work is figurative painting with subject matter drawn from either her personal life of family, friends and school, or rock stars, royalty and celebrities. She has worked in various jobs, including as a waitress, stripper and cleaner.
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 by her of Diana, Princess of Wales, which provoked media controversy, as did a subsequent painting of drug victim Rachel Whitear. There was a dispute with the Stuckists, who said they had influenced her work; Vine said they had not.
Later work has included Kate Moss as a subject, as in Holy water cannot help you now (2005). In 2005, another painting of Diana, Princess of Wales, Murdered, pregnant and embalmed (2005) was bought by George Michael. 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 provided clothing designs for Topshop.
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 names. Vine 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. Vine said she was "making things and performing music and plays, as far back as I can remember." 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.
After a difficult relationship with her stepfather, Vine left home aged 13. Vine lived in the infamousArgyle Street, Norwich squat before being briefly fostered in Brixton, London but her new foster parents were unable to cope with her wilfulness. Vine then moved back to Norwich, to teach herself in the Norwich Reference Library. She moved into a bedsit on St Stephen's Street, Norwich, where she started a relationship with a 24-year-old caretaker. Vine's first job was at age 14 in a local Norwich cake shop. Two years later she became pregnant, and at the age of 17, gave birth to a son, Jamie, moving with him into a home for single parents called Umbrella Housing. and then to London, where Vine joined the NYT (National Youth Theatre of Britain) in 1983, and the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts, London, 1987–1990. They moved to Tooting in 1987 and her son went to a Montessori nursery school. Vine later took her son out of school because he had been bullied and educated him at home.
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