"Her distinctive matte palette and limited use of perspective continue to infuse her subject matter with an ethereal quality that also hints at an underlying discordance - as if a secret best kept hidden is somewhere just beyond sight."

Richard Moll
The Kingston Whig Standard, December 14, 1996

"In vague narratives, this new body of work...describes the compelling need to love or be loved and myriad combinations of the two.  From eternal to fleeting, from madness to disinterest, from erotic to malignant, the illusions of love portrayed in these paintings share an overall, if subtle, sense of hunger.  Love is equated with "need," and in this light, a range of tales unfold."

Translated from Vivenda Magazine, Amsterdam, March 2006

J. T. Winik pursued a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (Halifax, NS) followed by a Bachelor of Education from the University of Western Ontario.  Throughout her career she has been involved in the arts both as a painter and an administrator. She is past Gallery Director of the Modern Fuel Artist-run Centre (formerly the Kingston Artists' Association) and has served, as well, on their Board of Directors. She first began to spend extensive periods in Europe in 1996 to participate in an artists' residence in Spain and has since dedicated herself entirely to painting.  She has spent extensive periods at the guest studio of the Retort Artists' Foundation in Amsterdam and has also worked alongside artists in Mexico during a five month period near Guadalajara in 2005.  This year her work takes her again to Spain.

Frequently incorporating the female form, and with a focus on female sexuality, recurring themes examine the ambiguous space between opposite emotional or physical states.   Beauty and ugliness, power and fragility, guilt and innocence, passion and passivity, etc. provide wide ranges in which to explore the connections between these poles.

Most recently, Winik's work takes a closer view of the figure, settling on the face itself, absent of context.  A face reveals but it also hides and any face in any moment is a unique and intricate weaving of the lines which connect opposite states.  A facial expression is never one thing or another, but a melding of differences.

Recent Group exhibitions include Vanity/Vanitas (by the Organization of Kingston Women Artists), Kingston Arts Council Gallery, 2007; Fair Vanity (three person show), Oeno Gallery, Prince Edward County, 2007; Open Ateliers rond de Schinkel, the Retort Artists Foundation, Amsterdam, 2006; and Figurations, Sopa Fine Arts, Kelowna, BC, 2006.

Solo exhibitions include: Heart Itch - and other tales, Galerie Arta Casa, Amsterdam, 2006; J. T. Winik - New Work, The Blue Dot Gallery, Toronto, 2004; Her Story, Galerie Arta Casa, Amsterdam, 2004; Recent Works, The Retort Artists' Foundation, Amsterdam, 2003; Interiors - Paintings by J. T. Winik, at Juten Gallery, Toronto, 1999; Entropic Love, at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, 1998; and Recent Works by J. Winik, at Galerie Zona, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1998.

SEE CV FOR FULL EXHIBITION LISTINGS

"Winik's work conjures a filmic sense of frozen narrative, often set within convincing but illogical spaces.
...The series constitutes an affectionate exploration of the penchant of human passion for repetition of a limited repertoire of configurations, what critic Lee Partpart has described as ' the bent narratives of naivete, foolishness and empowerment.' "

Jan Allen
Curator of Contemporary Art, The Agnes Etherington Art Centre
Currents, Vol. 14,# 2, 1998