Artist Spotlight: George Winston
Artist Spotlight: George Winston
As adults, we can sometimes let things we enjoy slip away from us. The demands of work and family life can leave us with little time left for anything else. This was the situation George Winston found himself in. However, once his kids had grown up and he finally reached retirement, George was able to reconnect with his art.
While George always had an appreciation for art, he wasn’t much of an artist himself growing up. It wasn’t until he attended college at IUS that he starting creating his own art. In an attempt to spend more time with his college girlfriend, who was an art major, George took courses in art theory and art history. Eventually, George and his girlfriend married and George went on to work in factories and in construction.
One of his jobs was at a veneer company. While there, in his off-time, he would exercise his creativity and see what he could make with scraps lying around. When his boss saw this, he encouraged George to take all the scraps he wanted. This was the beginning of another of George’s creative pursuits: woodworking.
After retiring in 2010, George wanted to pursue art further and enrolled at the Kentucky College of Art and Design. In his studies here and at IUS all those years ago, George found a fondness for impressionist painters, particularly Monet and Cézanne, an influence clearly present in his landscapes. Another factor governing his artistic aesthetic is George’s process: he paints from a combination of memory and imagination. George mentally records landscapes he sees in real life and attempts to recreate them. Although, George is quick to note, “Doesn’t always work that way. Turns out to be what it wants to be a lot of times.” As such, details in the landscapes often change as creative forces take control. The result are beautiful fictional landscapes portrayed through the softening haze of an impressionist lens.
If you would like to see more of his work, you can check out his site at gwthecrossman.com.
As adults, we can sometimes let things we enjoy slip away from us. The demands of work and family life can leave us with little time left for anything else. This was the situation George Winston found himself in. However, once his kids had grown up and he finally reached retirement, George was able to reconnect with his art.
While George always had an appreciation for art, he wasn’t much of an artist himself growing up. It wasn’t until he attended college at IUS that he starting creating his own art. In an attempt to spend more time with his college girlfriend, who was an art major, George took courses in art theory and art history. Eventually, George and his girlfriend married and George went on to work in factories and in construction.
One of his jobs was at a veneer company. While there, in his off-time, he would exercise his creativity and see what he could make with scraps lying around. When his boss saw this, he encouraged George to take all the scraps he wanted. This was the beginning of another of George’s creative pursuits: woodworking.
After retiring in 2010, George wanted to pursue art further and enrolled at the Kentucky College of Art and Design. In his studies here and at IUS all those years ago, George found a fondness for impressionist painters, particularly Monet and Cézanne, an influence clearly present in his landscapes. Another factor governing his artistic aesthetic is George’s process: he paints from a combination of memory and imagination. George mentally records landscapes he sees in real life and attempts to recreate them. Although, George is quick to note, “Doesn’t always work that way. Turns out to be what it wants to be a lot of times.” As such, details in the landscapes often change as creative forces take control. The result are beautiful fictional landscapes portrayed through the softening haze of an impressionist lens.
If you would like to see more of his work, you can check out his site at gwthecrossman.com.