HEART ITCH

"In vague narratives, this new body of work by Canadian painter, J. T. Winik, describes the compelling need to love or to 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 Dutch)

Vivenda Magazine
March 2006

Get Connected at the Agnes

"...J. T. Winik's painting, Journals, which is a pensive view of four women (presumably the same woman) and a sunglassed (emotionally distant) man...has the still-water, static surface hiding the imminent violence feeling you expect to find in an Alex Colville painting."

Ben Darrah
The Kingston Whig Standard
July 26, 2003

Works depict the emotions of life

The artist's new work is an exploration of personal space, the moods and responses summoned by companionship and the private moment. The viewer cannot help but be enthralled by these works. Yet there is no sense of invasion or voyeurism in the sharing of this intimacy.

...Winik's signature matte palette (which also serves to keep the artist in the role of dispassionate observer) is occasionally struck with bursts of rich colour...These elements jar the viewer into remembering that the works are as much about the act of painting as they are about the imagery.

Richard Moll
The Kingston Whig-Standard
December 1998  


Entropic Love

The new paintings by Kingston artist J. T. Winik presented in Entropic Love offer a blend of steamy '40s sensuality and the acrid isolation of the fin-de-siecle. Winik's work conjures a filmic sense of frozen narrative, often set within convincing but illogical spaces. The subject matter and mood of this latest body of work, with its mixed atmosphere of melancholy carnivalesque, reflect the artist's periods of residence in Spain.

The series constitutes an affectionate exploration of the penchant of human passion for repetition of a limited repertoire of configurations, what critic Lee Parpart has described as "the bent narratives of naivete, foolishness, and empowerment." The players seem vulnerable and painfully disconnected from one another, yet they act out there roles with a kind of giddy, driven solemnity. Follower's of Winik's work will find her trademark whimsicality has not disappeared, but has been subsumed into something more complex here..."

Jan Allen
Curator of Contemporary Art
The Agnes Etherington Art Centre
(June, 1998)


Artist captures love's elusive nature

The paintings of...J. T. Winik are both alluring and enigmatic. Often, each painted scene of people in landscapes or interiors suggests a complex elusive narrative: the figures' expressions, gestures and gazes are ambiguous, yet heavy with implication...She portrays people alone, people in groups, people alone in groups. "My paintings in general are a psychological exploration of the individual, of the self. But also of the individual in relation to others," explains Winik.

Because "seeing clearly" is so important for her art, Winik makes a point of seeking the unfamiliar. She finds that elements of change and 'dislocation' - like living in an unfamiliar place or culture - help give her work perspective.

For Winik, 'dislocation' has become not only the theme of her exhibition, it serves as a very necessary element in her life. Dislocation, in both the physical and psychological sense, provide the chaos and disruption in life that can lead to change and renewal.

Katherine Romba
Progressive Independent Community Press
June 1998  


J. T. Winik's Entropic Love

The mystery is: What is going on in these paintings: Who are these people Winik has portrayed so accurately that certain individuals are instantly recognizable? It must mean something that she has portrayed them as characters from the tradition commedia del'arte - Harlequin and Punchinello, stock characters that play specific roles, the Lover, the Fool. Does she mean to imply that these people are locked irrevocably into these roles?

It must be significant that some people in the paintings wear masks, while others are shown in whiteface, like mimes, which also functions as a mask. In theatre, masks serve to define a character for the audience, but often they conceal as much as they reveal by obscuring the wearer's true expression.

A kernel of mystery animates these paintings, a certain ambiguity fuels them...
Perhaps this ambiguity is the point. Entropy refers to the tendency towards increasing disorder in the physical universe. The show's title, Entropic Love, suggests that love is disorderly or that it causes disorder. Far from bringing happiness and harmony, love obscures, disrupts and destroys. Winik conjures the narrative elements, it is for the viewer to interpret them.

Melanie Dugan
Kingston This Week
June 1998

Everday life and fairy tales

J. T. Winik's enigmatic paintings of men, women and children caught up in the bent narratives of naivete, foolishness and empowerment are some of the most moving and instantly recognizable canvases to be found...

Her smooth, matte surfaces and muted palette of greens and earth tones read like moments in a gradually unfolding fairy tale, where fear is never far off, but where the reigning emotion is one of quiet, self-contained wonder.

It's not always clear whether Winik's female subjects have found what they're looking for or are caught up in a desparate search for surrogates, but the overriding sense is one of women doing it for themselves, and for each other.

The flip side of this is that most of Winik's men are either fools (in the literal sense) or philanderers, but her gossamer touch tends to offset any overt critique of masculinity... On the contrary, both of the men in Blue Fool and Jester in White seem like sympathetic subjects whose ability to 'play the fool' has to do with a capacity for gentleness.

Now and then, though, Winik takes her analysis of gender a bit further by breaking down the voyeuristic gaze of certain male subjects.

...Whether or not you agree with the politics I have read into these paintings, it's hard not to be affected by the diffuse, fresco-like surfaces, curious narratives and rich formal elegance of these paintings.

Lee Parpart
The Kingston Whig-Standard
December 1997



Hidden treasure in charted territory

When an artist develops an instantly identifiable style, there is an almost irresistible urge for a reviewer to think "okay, been there...done that." This has nothing to do with the art and everything to do with complacency in the writer.

...Winik is an artist whose work I admire not only for its esthetic appeal, but also for its ability to force me to look at familiar work with a critical eye.

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 1996  


The Café and Art History:
Establishing contexts for the representational paintings of J. T. Winik

(The following excerpts refer to an exhibition by J. T. Winik, entitled Perspectives, held in the context of a popular city cafe.)

Re. The painting "Black and White": A man in a black jacket and tie is leaving. His black-clothed torso fills the canvas and extends beyond. You can't see his face, just his jacket, his stride, his act. A woman is pulled into the picture clutching his arm as he storms away. The line from the nape of his neck to his elbow is like a black mountain slope she is scaling with her bare hands. Shadows cloud her eyes.

The author observes: A woman in the café gets up to put on her jacket. She pauses, looking at the painting. Then she more than pauses, she stands there, looking. She doesn't see me behind her, my gaze on the back of her head. She is blocking my view of the painting, and I'm wondering what her eyes are telling her.

In a conversation, the artist says, "This is always interpreted as a woman clinging or clutching to a man in an attempt to 'keep' him. Yet...perhaps she has stopped him..."

... J. T. Winik, unlike many representational painters past and present, uses representational painting, not to demonstrate her technical virtuosity, but to engage her viewers intellectually.
Her small-format drawings are different from her canvases, more decorative and whimsical. One example is the coloured drawing called "Nefertiti's New Hat" which depicts, in profile, the well-known limestone bust of the Egyptian Queen at the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. Instead of her familiar tall, angular headdress, however, Nefertiti is donning a yellow leopard skin pill box hat. ... The impact (humour) of "Nefertiti's New Hat" is as much in the image as it is in the title, its meter, alliteration, and diction.

Jennifer Roche
Ash Magazine
Spring, 1995