Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Terry Winters
American; 20th-century, 21st-century
Chicago, IL: Bodenrader (Exhibition: Know)
81%
Thyreos. 2020. Oil, wax, and resin on linen
Two things are great about this artwork: first, its coquettish play with materiality; second, its convoluted fractal logic and arrangement. First: each of those larger dots that grid the whole surface of the painting, edge to edge, have just the slightest bit of impasto, but also most of them are darker than the ground they've been placed on, such that they're all clearly convex — palpable — when you're right up close but from afar they seem flat or almost concave. This isn't just a nice optical effect (and Winters could sure be accused of an over-focus on opticality) but also a deft way of turning the painting into an object without undermining its status as a painting. The necessity of doing exactly this isn't new; it is persistent within "Contemporary" painting, of which Winters is a paragon. Second: another thing Winters could be accused of is relying too heavily on pattern and the almost breathing organicity of his forms; the challenge he seems to set for himself is how to get away with these things, which he's done here by engaging patterning past the point of sense or legibility. Every shape except for that of the canvas itself appears to conform to some sort of serialized logic, but each plane in the painting has its own slightly distinct organizing mechanism, such that every layer seems at once harmonious and completely incommensurable. Pair this with how much of his handling Winters lets show (which has the effect of making each plane seem slightly to blend with the next) and you have a work that is capable of engaging pinks and pointless repetitions without ever seeming indulgent. (2025)