{"data":{"id":"1440","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":1440,"topgoose_id":287,"tms_id":1440,"display_name":"Terry Winters","sort_name":"Winters Terry","display_date":"1949–","begin_date":"1949","end_date":"0","biography":"\u003cp\u003eFor the past four decades Terry Winters\nhas delved into organic abstraction in\npainting, drawing, and printmaking.\nHis earliest canvases, from the mid-1970s—\nallover compositions filled with thick\nand clearly recognizable brushstrokes—\nadhered to the monochrome formats\nchampioned by postwar artists. A shift\ntoward quasi-representational imagery\noccurred in 1980, when his interest\nin the material qualities of paint led him to\ndepict the crystalline structures of\nthe minerals from which his pigments—\nmany of which he ground himself—were\ncomposed. By the early 1980s Winters\nbegan incorporating schematically rendered\nbiological imagery into his canvases,\nevocative of pollen, ova, cells, and other\nindeterminate organic material.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\nIn \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/3351\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eGood Government\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e Winters applied\npaint in thinly layered strokes or heavily\nimpastoed sections, using tools that ranged\nfrom traditional brushes to rags to palette\nknives. The large forms at the top resemble\nhoneycombs and molecular chains, while\nthe smaller black shapes positioned along\nthe bottom conjure plant spores or enlarged\nchromosomes, signaling the fundamental\nstructures of life. The title alludes to one\nof Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s fourteenth-century\nfrescoes, \u003cem\u003eAllegory of Good Government\u003c/em\u003e,\nwhich Winters saw in Siena, Italy, prior to\nbeginning the canvas; but it also refers\nto his compositional process. Winters\nrecalled how when the painting began to\ncohere, it reminded him “of those charts you\nwould see in elementary school about\ngood government, where all the different\nthings were all working together.” Despite\nWinters’s identifiable references and\nscientific imagery, the painting ultimately\nremains open to interpretation. “The\nimage has a life of its own,” he has stated;\n“the image itself is an organism.”\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500000039","wikidata_id":"Q2405815","created_at":"2017-08-30T15:36:05.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-23T01:32:19.412-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/1440/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/1440/exhibitions"}}}}