Maureen Winzig

Artist Bio I have studied illustration and design at Pace University.  Graphic art and web design at SUNY Westchester.  I’ve studied painting styles and technique with accomplished artist Ed Burke www.edwardaburke.com and portrait painting from renowned artist Andrew Lattimore  www.andrewlattimore.com.  I have had other teachers and workshops along the way to now. Many years I spent working with pencil and marker taken by its control and crispness.  Fantasy images and portraits dominated my works.  I found work for a local magazine, a children’s book, and to illustrate movie stars for an acting book.  Computer graphics seemed like the sensible thing to learn.  I spent much time and study to discover while very good at it, this was not my passion. But in the late ‘90’s went back to visit paint, oil paint this time.  Its texture and versatility took me over.  I find myself sliding over the line of illustration into a more fluid place.  The oil paint itself takes me deeper into my subject and into my mind with endless possibility.  Having both the technical ability to draw and the guts and technique to paint has served me well in my ability to pull off my visions and affect the viewer with a style and the story within each of my paintings. Recently I have taken my work on the road to street festivals bringing me closer to the immediate reactions people have to my paintings.  My work has been in many shows with the several area groups of which I belong.  Being a member of the Beacon Art Salon, The Garrison Art Center, The Peekskill Arts Council and the Ossining Arts Council has given me a great deal of opportunity to show my work all along the Hudson Valley.  My residential mural work is taking off.  People love that I can create a palpable mood in any room, depicted by the ideas and feel of the owner. Artist Statement Born in Hartford, CT in 1958 makes me a post-boom baby.  My coming of age in the ‘70’s, naturally lead me to the heavy pop art scene of the time, i.e. Peter Max, Robert Crumb and Andy Warhol were everywhere. Culture was recreating itself yet again at a heighten rate like never before.  I think my “Anything goes” approach in my art comes from the spoon feeding of art and culture shock bombardment at a young age. This is greatly reflected in my painting through the myriad of subject matter and style.  One running tread is my use of boldness of colors and striking shadows.  While I may present a lovely portrait or flower or landscape, it usually will contain within a kind of tension or energy that comes to me in the painting process. While not always visible in my work at first glance, starting over is something very personal to me and very necessary.  It’s in there.  All things have a beginning and end, and then will come something new.  As a child, I would draw on blank pages of library books, inside paper-lined suitcases, and the occasional impromptu crayon mural on the living room wall.  We moved 8 times within the 1st 8 years of my life so starting over has come naturally to me and with a price.  Nothing is permanent and neither is my subject matter or style. But nature herself has been the greatest master, forever taunting with stunning sunsets and heart breaking humanity splayed out before me.  Having nothing but the camera in my purse or the one in my mind to try and capture its essence to recreate in my own way.  While I do en plain air painting, that is something entirely different for me.  The million thoughts and images I process each day through witnessing nature in motion, human interaction, written & spoken word and dreams, comes from me a condensed and concentrated energy of all that and more.  Trying to translate this into imagery is my greatest torment and greatest joy.