Arts Council Collection acquires Roy Oxlade
A 1987 painting has been included in the 19/20 acquisitions portfolio
1 December 2019
Roy Oxlade, Rose and Painter, 1987. Courtesy: © Roy Oxlade
The Arts Council Collection have unveiled their 2019/20 acquisitions, which includes Roy Oxlade’s 1987 work, Rose and Painter (1987).
Roy Oxlade worked across six decades to produce paintings and works on paper which were rooted in his experiences of the physical world around him. Domesticity and ritual are central to his oeuvre, which uses motifs such as scissors, jugs, lemons and lamps, which Oxlade selected for their aesthetic and functional qualities.
The artist’s wife, fellow painter Rose Wylie, also appears regularly in his works. Oxlade’s creative process was fuelled by instinct and immediacy. For him, the future of art meant going back to basics. Drawing was a critical tool, and he referred to the medium as the essence of his practice. In Rose and Painter (1987), the figures of artist and muse are portrayed using quick, decisive brushstrokes.
While creating clarity on the canvas was an important objective for Oxlade, the possibility of interpretation was also vital: ‘I have no interest in the window-on-the-world kind of painting’, he commented. As a result, the artist described his pictures as offering a synthesis of thought, feeling and poetic imagination.