Power and understatement: Struggle finds resolve in the abstract art of Adam Winner

Who: Connecticut born artist Adam Winner lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. The young artist graduated from Syracuse University in 2001 and debuted his work in New York last year. Even at a young age, Winner has taken part in a great number of group exhibitions.

About the artist: His work has been shown all over in galleries and exhibitions such as the Josée Bienvenue Gallery in New York; the 9.9 Gallery in Guatemala City, Guatemala; the Ampersand Gallery in Portland, Oregon; and the 80 Washington Square East Galleries in New York. He now has first solo show in Europe with the highly regarded Galerie Forsblom.

What he is known for: Winner is known for his subtle, delicate compositions that combine sculpture and painting that embrace a tonal spectrum of white. He utilizes various materials and layers of paint on the canvas to create understated, yet powerful works of art.

What’s being said about him: An article the Josée Bienvenue Gallery website discusses Winner’s first solo exhibition in New York, titled *Scratchpad,* saying:

“The exhibition unfolds as an abstract self-portrait based on the artist’s negotiation with his body measurements. The works examine Winner’s distorted, subjective notion of his body, and the external manifestations of internal conflict. Aspects of his body serve as dimensional constraints, and inform the content of his paintings.

Adam Winner uses abstract painting as a tool to resolve inner struggle. The hand is very, deliberately, apparent in the work. His paintings of elementary gestures are imbued with a feeling of self-doubt, but shot through with a sense of confidence and control over the materials. Conflict and uneasiness form part of the content of his work. The paintings are concerned with multiple forms of imperfection. Brought into play through constraints both personal, and universal, such as the notion of a ‘golden ratio’, the theorized ideal proportion, only brought up in order to be deviated from.”

Photo: Scratchpad, 2015, Oil on linen, 21 works, 10 x 8 inches each, detail. Photo courtesy of Josée Bienvenu Gallery.