Rose WylieFlick and Float

“Toujours la différence”: This is how Fabienne Eggelhöfer quotes the British artist Rose Wylie (b. 1934) in her text, which she opens with a studio visit. It is a phrase she heard again and again from Rose Wylie in conversation, for a detail can, after all, make the difference, can completely change a drawing or an oil painting. In her large-format canvases a swiftly applied stroke appears to predominate, but it is precisely “la différance” that requires a great deal of work. The book “Rose Wylie: Flick and Float” presents the unconforming and fascinating oeuvre of the British artist. Through her singular artistic practice and the broad range of her subjects she has gained worldwide recognition. Wylie’s large-format paintings are a mixture of figurative representation, abstraction and picture stories. Expressive, direct and with subversive humour, they bear witness to the artist’s engagement with pop culture, literature, history and personal experience. Wylie’s artistic language is deliberately simple and recalls the aesthetic of Bad Painting and of Post Pop. With works from the past thirty years, the catalogue offers an insight into the untamed oeuvre of an artist who transcends conventional boundaries and occupies a unique place in the contemporary art scene. In addition, individual paintings were made especially for the exhibition in Bern and are now being presented to the public for the first time, just as the photographs by Juergen Teller, in their unmistakable manner, introduce us to the artist’s altogether different world and attune us to it.

Exhibition: Zentrum Paul Klee Bern, 19/7 – 5/10/2025