Paul Winstanley is a painter who uses the ostensibly traditional genres of Landscape / Interior / Still Life / Figure / to create works of conceptual rigour that present the relationship of the viewer to the painting as central to the content of the work. At once methodical and melancholic his painterly depictions of landscapes, walkways, veiled windows, TV Lounges, art school studios and individuals distracted in contemplation are rendered in an exacting and subtle palette. Training initially as an abstract and minimalist painter Winstanley reversed the usual trend of early 20th century artists by moving back towards a new, more self aware representational work. His paintings however do retain much of the aesthetic qualities of the earlier abstraction in their pictorial organisation and minimalist feel. His paintings draw as much from historical northern European artists such as Caspar David Friedrich, Vermeer and Vilhelm Hammershoi as contemporary, more conceptual practitioners such as Richard Hamilton. The images Winstanley creates contain a sense of imposed order as well as an atmosphere of abandonment or expectation and of time inexorably passing.
Paul Winstanley lives and works in London.
Paul Winstanley
Interior with a Large Window (Yantra), 2021
oil on linen
222 x 148 x 5 cm / 87.4 x 58.3 x 2 in
Paul Winstanley
Lilies 2 (After Filippo Lippi), 2019
oil on gesso on panel
48 x 34 cm / 18.9 x 13.4 in
Paul Winstanley
New Age 2 (After Saenredam), 2018
oil on gesso on panel
114 x 76 cm / 44.9 x 29.9 in
Paul Winstanley
Trial (After Saenredam), 2017
oil and gold leaf on gesso panel
66 x 78 cm / 26 x 30.7 in
Paul Winstanley
Looking at Vermeer, 2017
oil and gold leaf on gesso on panel
60 x 55 cm / 23.6 x 21.7 in
Paul Winstanley
Veil 11, 2002
oil on linen
200 x 185 cm / 78.7 x 72.8 in
Collection of Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
Paul Winstanley has exhibited at Renaissance Gallery, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis; New Orleans Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Blankton Museum of Art, Austin; Colby Museum of Art, Maine; Tate, Hayward Gallery, Barbican Centre, Whitechapel Gallery, Royal Academy, Estorick Collection, and Delphina Gallery, all London; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; Tate, Walker Art Gallery, both Liverpool; Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendall; New Art Gallery, Walsall; Southampton City Art Gallery, John Hansard Gallery, both Southampton; Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham City Art Gallery, both Nottingham; Fondation del’Hermitage, Lausanne; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg; Kunstverein Freiburg; Kunstraum, Potsdam; Esbjerg Kunst Museum, Denmark; Museum of Modern Art, Rome; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Crawford Art Gallery, Cork; Today Art Museum, Beijing; Artspace, Auckland and Museu de Arte de São Paolo.
Paul Winstanley
A Certain Kind of Light, 2017
Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, UK
Paul Winstanley
Threshold, 2008
Artspace, Auckland, New Zealand
Paul Winstanley
Paul Winstanley: Paintings, 2004
New Art Centre, Roche Court, Salisbury, UK
Paul Winstanley
Annexe, Art Now 12, 1997/98
Tate Gallery, London, UK
Paul Winstanley
Driven Landscapes, 1993
Camden Arts Centre, London, UK
Paul Winstanley at Whitechapel Gallery, 'A Century of the Artist’s Studio: 1920 – 2020'.
