Coming soon at Galleria Six in Milan on May 11th - Galleria Six is proud to announce the first presentation in Italy of Paul Winstanley.
He was born in Manchester in June 1954. He studied painting at Cardiff College of Art from 1973-76 and the Slade from 1976-78.
Schooled in the orthodoxies of abstract Modernism, Winstanley spent a decade after college establishing a new visual language, combining the tenets of minimalism with the pictorialism of photography. His breakthrough showing of the large painting 'Walkway' at the Whitechapel Open in 1989 won him the first prize Unilever Award. He went on to enjoy a year as Kettle's Yard artist in residence in Cambridge, hosted by Churchill College with Newnham College providing the Old Lab in the gardens as a studio. In this supportive environment he created a new body of work shown first at Kettle's Yard and then on tour within the UK. Throughout the 1990's Winstanley developed an array of related imagery of semi-public, post-war interior spaces; of waiting rooms, lounges, TV rooms, walkways and lobbies; creating a meditation on the utility of English modernism and its concurrent political underpinnings. Along with his landscapes viewed from moving vehicles this work culminated first in his 1993 show 'Driven Landscapes' at Camden Arts Centre and then in his 1997/98 Art Now show 'Annexe' at Tate, Millbank.
He had a major retrospective of his work at Art Space, Auckland, New Zealand in 2008. In 2013 his photographic project 'Art School' was published by Ridinghouse. In 2018 he produced his new book '59 Paintings' published by Art/Books.
The role of the viewer is central to an understanding of Winstanley's paintings and his occasional use of the figure echoes that active passivity. Engrossed, they watch, look, wait, smoke, phone, text.
Winstanley has shown regularly in Los Angeles, New York, Dublin, London, Paris and Hamburg. He has work in the collections of Tate (London), MoMA (New York), MoCA (Los Angeles), IMMA (Dublin), The British Library, The New York City Public Library, Southampton City Art Gallery, ACGB, British Council. He lives and works in London.
On view at Galleria Six in Milan from May 11th to July 20th, 2024. More information coming soon.
