Two Worlds
Kent Place School, Summit, NJ, September 16 - October 25, 2024.
Winter’s oil paintings in this show are rooted in the physical, visible world, but also speak to other levels of experience. The images show us a jaguar stalking the landscape, mounds of stones, and other images of nature, combining directness of touch with symbols that point beyond the literal. These paintings also have resonance with deeper histories. One painting seems in conversation with Giovanni di Paolo’s 1445 painting ‘The Creation of the World.’ -Ken Weathersby
South Mountain
Gold Montclair, New Jersey, May 18 - June 30, 2024.
Each painting in South Mountain was made on site, typically in one direct session. Winter uses the painting process to define a place within the larger space of the reservation. Where natural and human-made environments converge upon and disrupt one another, Winter takes what she finds at face value, painting quickly and without judgement.
Flores Silvestres
Biblioteca Andrés Henestrosa, Oaxaca, noviembre - diciembre, 2022.
I wanted to create a design that would reference historical examples of tapestries and make use of the high level of detail and depth that this weaving technique allows.
Verdor
Centro Cultural San Pablo, Oaxaca, julio - octubre 2022.
En las obras de la exposición… hay una especie de armonía que parece temporal, un equilibrio que se pierde para volver a construirse… Ese momento de mirada detenida que es cada pintura, da cuenta del sol que pasa por un jardín, y de la pintura como autocomprensión siempre en proceso. -Jorge Contreras
Revoloteo
Galería Quetzalli, Oaxaca, 9 de julio - 15 de septiembre, 2022.
Hay un pájaro que hunde su pico en una piedra. De la piedra nace agua. Pero el agua se convierte en fuego. El pájaro lo observa todo, desde lo alto. Ve que alguien se acerca con toda calma. Una mujer colecta el fuego y entonces se asoman más aves. Se acercan para decir algo sobre otro tiempo en que ese jardín era una reunión de cadáveres. -Karina Sosa
Afternoon Formations
Minus Space, Brooklyn, May 8 - July 31, 2021.
Winter’s innovative series of paintings presented in Afternoon Formations feature a solitary, acrobatic, human-like form placed into a highly-reduced interior environment overlooking a naturalistic landscape. Painted flatly in warm yellow hues, the sinewy, headless figure forms are halved into fore- and background layers and arch over backwards with their fingers grasping for their toes. The layered composition of these figures elicits a simultaneous clockwise and counterclockwise movement. The light source in these paintings is deliberately ambiguous creating unnatural shadows below the figures.
Gathering texture, following shape
A two-person exhibition with Nancy Shaver at Parker Gallery, Los Angeles, February 3 - March 20, 2019.
This two-person exhibition reveals the alternate embrace and rejection of craft-making principles inherent to each artist’s practice. As an object, a rug is an everyday furnishing that exists equally in the realm of decoration and utility. Working closely with craftspeople from her hometown, Winter maintains a connection to the culture and community. She invents disruptions to the original rug designs to carry their culture into the present, complicating the weaving process without straying too far from its origins. Her design interventions reflect the visual disorganization of Victorian crazy quilts, tempered by the rigor of hard-edge geometric painting.
Cut Outs XI, 2018. Wool and natural dyes, 274 x 101.5 cm, 108 x 40", woven by Jerónimo and Josefina Hernández, Oaxaca.
Cut Outs X, 2014. Wool and natural dyes, 300 x 200 cm, 118.5 x 78.5", woven by Jerónimo and Josefina Hernández, Oaxaca.
Cut Outs Rug VII, 2014. Wool and natural dyes, 206 x 124.5 cm, 81 x 49", woven by Jerónimo and Josefina Hernández, Oaxaca.
Cut Outs Rug XIII, 2019. Wool and natural dyes, 331 x 112 cm, 130.5 x 44". With designs by master weaver Ismael Gutiérrez Bazán, woven by Jerónimo and Josefina Hernández, Oaxaca.
Scissors and Roses, 2018. Oil and oil stick on linen, 22 x 15".
This rock absorbs nothing so the water splashes around it and lands back on itself
Ulterior Gallery, New York, January 27 - February 25, 2018.
Conscious intent plays a role in their creation, but a limited one; Winter allows her process to direct the work’s unfolding. This openness to happenstance and discovery creates conditions for imagery to surface—imagery that is at once stark, ambiguous, and psychologically fraught.
El Fragmento Completo
Museo de los Pintores Oaxaqueños, Oaxaca, 2014.
Diez años de trabajo en pintura, grabado y textil de la artista oaxaqueña Emi Winter.
Sol Arriba, Sol Abajo
Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca, marzo - abril 2011.
La serie Recortes nos invita a reflexionar el término y límite de palabras-acciones como contenido y contenedor; la mascarilla negra deja entrever lo que sucede por debajo de ella, líneas que demuestran la incisión sobre las placas. El color negro se vuelve una presencia que delimita nuestra mirada y que a su vez crea la estructura del propio cuadro; esta “mascarilla” le da forma (cuerpo) al fondo, creando profundidad. Delimita, acota, demarca, inscribe, circunscribe, resalta… -Guillermo Fricke
Típicamente Abstracta
Galería Quetzalli, Oaxaca, marzo - abril, 2011.
Estamos ante la narrativa de lo imaginario. Emi Winter posee la virtud de otorgar al tiempo que existe en su obra, otro ritmo distinto al del tiempo en que vivimos y en el que observamos su trabajo. Ella se considera a sí misma una buscadora de nuevas experiencias pictóricas y esto se traduce en una visualidad que inicia indudablemente con lo matérico. Obra de gran frescura, líquida y seductora. Transparente. Es posible mirar lejos cuando ponemos la mirada sobre alguna de sus piezas. -Santiago Espinosa de los Monteros
Diamonds
Compact Gallery, San Luis Obispo, CA, May 2004.
Three of the four paintings are large shaped canvases that activate this small gallery’s space in a remarkably powerful way. Winter’s method is meticulous. The non-objective prints and paintings would seem austere if not for their vibrant color and almost mind-bending spatial illusions. -Leslie Sutcliffe
Momotos y Tangaras
Galería Quetzalli, Oaxaca, 11 de abril - 15 junio, 2003.
El colorido de las aves y los diseños de los textiles mexicanos convergen en la obra nueva de Emi Winter. La estructura sencilla y los diseños geométricos de estas pinturas evocan los rebozos y huipiles del estado de Oaxaca. Inspirados en el vivo plumaje de las aves yucatecas, los colores que caracterizan a estas obras de formato grande son tan vibrantes como aquellos que distinguen a las mujeres de la sierra oaxaqueña.
The colors of birds and the patterns of Mexican textiles converge in Emi Winter’s new work. The simple, bold structure and geometric patterns of these paintings evoke the rebozos and huipiles of Winter’s native Oaxaca. Inspired by the bright plumage of Yucatecan birds, the colors that characterize these large paintings are as vibrant as those that distinguish the women of the Oaxacan highlands. -Erica Cusi Wortham
Tangara, 2003, oil on canvas, 238 x 116 cm, 94 x 45"
Chupaflor, 2003, oil on canvas, 238 x 116 cm, 94 x 45"
Momoto, 2003, oil on canvas, 238 x 116 cm, 94 x 45"
La Fundación Chinati
Marfa, Texas, April 2001.
Presenting work made during the artist residency program at The Chinati Foundation.
Encáusticas
Galería Quetzalli, Oaxaca, diciembre 1999.
Como una artífice medieval que conociera de alquimia, se pone a trabajar haciendo gala de paciencia, respeto, entrega a los materiales que usa, que son los idóneos para lograr las composiciones que propone. Teresa del Conde, Encáusticas.
Looking at these subtle objects made of wax and pigment, we are constantly fascinated by the surface itself. We may vainly look for symbols and images, but are always forcefully brought back to the beauty of the physical object with its deep color and contrasting textures. David J. Getsy, In the Surface.
Foto: Marcela Taboada, Oaxaca, 1999.