Our Inspirational Diversity Champion for January is the artist Rose Wylie.

In 2014 Rose won one of the UK’s most prestigious painting awards at the age of 80. The £25,000 John Moores Painting Prize, was Rose’s latest accolade after being belatedly discovered by the art world with her paintings only receiving recognition in the past five years.  She won for her painting ‘PV Windows and Floorboards’, which represents figures at a private view in an art gallery. Unlike the Turner Prize, which excludes artists over the age of 50, the John Moores Prize has no upper age limit.  It was founded in 1957, and previous winners have included David Hockney, Richard Hamilton and Peter Doig.

The prize comes 60 years after she began studying at Folkestone and Dover School of Art.  Rose  resumed her art training at the Royal College of Art while in her mid-40s, having taken time out to bring up her family but it was some years before she began to receive recognition on the art scene.

In 2010, at the age of 76, she was selected to represent the UK in the Women to Watch exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC, which showcases up-and-coming artists.

She received a Paul Hamlyn Award for Visual Art in 2011 and her first retrospective opened the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings in 2012.

Wylie’s work has recently been exhibited in New York and Amsterdam and she has exhibitions planned for Wolfsburg, Dublin and another in New York.