J.T. Winik

Biography

 

J. T. Winik pursued a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (Halifax, NS) followed by a Bachelor of Education from the University of Western Ontario. Throughout her career she has been involved in the arts both as a painter and an administrator. She is past Gallery Director of the Modern Fuel Artist-run Centre (formerly the Kingston Artists’ Association) and has served, as well, on their Board of Directors. In 1996 Winik first participated in an artists’ residence in Spain and has since dedicated herself entirely to painting. She has spent extensive periods at the guest studio of the Retort Artists’ Foundation in Amsterdam and has also worked alongside artists in Mexico during a five-month period near Guadalajara in 2005.

 

Frequently incorporating the female form, and with a focus on female sexuality, recurring themes examine the ambiguous space between opposite emotional or physical states. Beauty and ugliness, power and fragility, guilt and innocence, passion and passivity, etc. provide wide ranges in which to explore the connections between these poles.

 

Recently, Winik’s work takes a closer view of the figure, settling on the face itself, absent of context. A face reveals but it also hides and any face in any moment is a unique and intricate weaving of the lines which connect opposite states. A facial expression is never one thing or another, but a melding of differences.

 

“In vague narratives, this new body of work...describes the compelling need to love or be loved and myriad combinations of the two. From eternal to fleeting, from madness to disinterest, from erotic to malignant, the illusions of love portrayed in these paintings share an overall, if subtle, sense of hunger.  Love is equated with ‘need,’ and in this light, a range of tales unfold.”

Translated from Vivenda Magazine, Amsterdam, March 2006

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