Stella Vine
English painter and former stripper, who found success when Charles Saatchi bought a controversial painting by her of Princess Diana in 2004.
I identify with people like Diana who just want to be loved by everybody. If somebody doesn’t like me I find that very upsetting.
I had been painting Kate Moss for a long time, both before the time of her crisis and during it. I felt very strongly for her - she's a hard-working mum and it seemed as if suddenly the world turned against her. Holy water cannot help you now is painted in very warm pretty colours...
When Alexander McQueen bought the Kate Moss painting, she was really being persecuted. I can't remember the exact timing, but I think it was before the cocaine, when she was just having a hard time with Peter. I think that was when he bought that. I was really pleased because he was such a huge supporter of her. It was so terrible what was happening to her.
Even in the most horrendous situations there is always something to smile about.
I felt I didn't belong to either family.
I think there is a total equality for me between painting a literary figure or Kate Moss or my Mum or a dog or a bird. To me, they are all absolutely equal.
I felt like a social worker a lot of the time.
This is a dark painting with a bit of violence because I was very affected by Diana's death. I cried all day because I liked her, warts and all. Most of all I liked the way that she wanted to be loved and didn't mind admitting it.
On Christmas Day I'll head off for a couple of laps around the Serpentine, or a trek around the whole of Hyde Park. Or I'll walk right across town, with Curtis, my son Jamie's bull mastiff
I’ve lived on my own since I was 13 and not been to school and brought a son up who’s now 18 and run theatre companies and bought a butcher’s shop, learnt guitar by myself, taught myself to sing and that sort of stuff.
The art world is really exactly the same as the sex industry: you have to be completely on guard, you will get shafted, fucked over left, right and centre. And you will also meet charming, wonderful people like a rainbow at the end of the day.
I have always been drawn to the beauty and the tragedy of Diana’s life which I hope I’ve captured in this new series of paintings. I wanted to show her
I do have a very, very big problem with someone who saw me coming and exploited me as a mascot.
I was just falling in love right, left and centre with these gorgeous young artists who came in the gallery. They’d see this fat old stripper, this nutter who runs a butcher’s shop that she thinks is an art gallery, and who thinks she’s some artist but hasn’t even been to art school... They probably thought, "Christ, who is this woman who’s texting me 20 times a day?"
I will look through 200 photographs of Kate Moss and there will be just one that I connect with for some reason, maybe because of the composition or something in the eye... Something touches me and I know I have to paint it, in the way a child knows it wants something.
A common misperception of me is that I am a victim. I am not a victim. I am just honest about how things affect me.