It all contributes to a sense of anarchy which is fitting for an artist who at 91 is a rebel in the art world, a woman who tells me she “possibly was an early punk,” despite having Victorian parents who brought her up to be modest, even telling her not to wear lipstick. The child they produced had different ideas and deep red lipstick is one of Wylie’s trademarks.
As for her captivating paintings, she tells me she’s “perfectly happy” when people think they have been created by a much younger artist. “Who wants to paint like an old person? It’s fresher”.
Wylie even keeps the hours of a teenager when she works, painting late into the night (“twenty to four is probably my latest”) when the village she lives in is quiet. “Nobody phones, nobody knocks at the door, only Pete at the window, so there’s no interruption.”
She never plans it that way, starting work at around 1700 in the afternoon, but “you go on and then it becomes the night, it gets dark and then you think ‘oh well, that’s fine’ and then you look at it again and you think ‘No, it isn’t, it’s not fine, it is bad’. Then you go on and suddenly it’s late. That’s how it happens”.