Courtesy of Tory Folliard Gallery
A farmstead, a field, hills in the distance and above all, the sky. Not just in a literal sense, but in the way that James Winn paints a celestial canopy of mood and color. His body of new paintings, on view at Tory Folliard Gallery, clothes the sprawling land in a mantle of light inspired by art historical predecessors and his attachment to nature.
Winn’s paintings are familiar to anyone who has cruised down county highways alongside open fields dotted with farmhouses and silos, decorated by deciduous trees and twilight skies. Working from photographs, Winn adds layer upon layer of acrylic paint, building rich depth and a convincing, atmospheric tranquility within these vistas. Many of the paintings are small in size but the typically low horizons create expansive views. Purple and blue clouds, gilded by warm rays of sun, illuminate the scenes. These compositional treatments are a nod to the Luminists, a group of American landscape artists of the mid- to late -19th century who evoked a sense of mystery through majestic treatment of the natural world.
Winn’s Flood Plain: No. 3 is one such example. The rosy sky opens to pale blue in the center, glowing translucently like stained glass. A preparatory sketch for the finished piece is also shown. Even in a trial run, Winn is meticulous and the spirit of the finished work is little changed from its earlier iteration, save for some compositional notes and altered hues.
Winn’s artistic interests have taken him on road trips to the Adirondack Mountains and anonymous, secluded corners of forest clearings and shorelines where water plants and minute wild creatures gather for his art. Striking a counterpoint are Winn’s urban portraits of Milwaukee’s City Hall and the Central Library Downtown. They are immediately recognizable and the style of cars suggests decades past. Their visual character is beautifully precise and filled with the linear geometry of streets and buildings, glowing and nearly shadowless. Yet, they are curiously straitlaced compared with the relaxed roll of the countryside, like the unaccustomed formality of a necktie. In the fields, Winn is most at home.
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“James Winn: New Paintings” continues through April 11 at Tory Folliard Gallery, 233 N. Milwaukee St.
