Portrait of artist Amy Winstanley sitting in her studio in front of a painting

Workplace is pleased to launch the latest instalment of Focus, a series of online exhibitions in the which the practice of artists at early stages of their career and new to the gallery programme are introduced through a body of work, curated specifically for each presentation.

For this instalment we introduce the work of Amy Winstanley (b.1983, Dumfries, UK), a Glasgow based artist who completed her BA (Hons) in Sculpture from the Edinburgh College of Art in 2005 and her MA from the Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam in 2019.

Your practice is made up of a ‘constellation of activity’ which includes reading, drawing, moving, and listening to music or podcasts. Is the sense of energy and flux in your paintings a reflection of this dynamic approach? 

 Yes, it feels natural to me to include reading, writing, and listening into my studio practice as it is a way to deepen my sense of the world. The act of painting, for me, provides fertile ground for critical thinking in tandem with exploring mood, observations, memories and feelings through the blending of intentional and intuitive mark-making. Whilst my attention gets pulled in different directions, all these activities are valuable to the paintings and this fluid approach to working, I hope, results in the paintings themselves reflecting, in some way, the energy and flux found within life itself.

A constant in your practice is an investigation into our entanglement and intertwined relationship with the landscape and natural world. How has your upbringing in rural Scotland informed this?

 My upbringing was one where I had the privilege of freedom to explore the ‘natural world’ around me and gain a strong sense of place within a community of people and the more-than-human world. This interest with entanglement has stemmed from there and has grown as my experience of life with love, loss and grief has shaped me. For many years I have lived in cities where a contrast to how I grew up, and a different exposure to life, has piqued an interest in looking critically at our current systems and way of life. The more I investigate this in my studio practice the more this gains traction for me and articulates something I have always known – our deep connection with the web-of-life. Painting, for me, is a means to go some way towards expressing this connection.

 The titles of your works touch upon a diverse set of references ranging from intimate personal moments to feminist literature and even faintly surreal or humorous words and phrases. Can you talk about your process to titling works? 

I find the act of painting is conducive to forming thought so when I am working, words and phrases often pop into my head. I liken this process to writing a story; the basic plot is there but as you write the story emerges into existence and so do words as I’m painting. I note these down. Sometimes it is something said in a podcast that resonates with me, or a sentence I’ve read that seems to crackle with meaning. At times phrases or words seem to stick to a particular piece as I’m working on it. Other times if a painting is 

 as I like to call them, but with no title, I will go back over my notes and assign one from them. I also like to play with words, like putting a well-known phrase the wrong way round, like “shadow of my former self” becomes “Former Self Shadow”. Or “what in the world are you waiting for” becomes “Waiting for the What in the World”. I do this to be playful as I see painting as a form of play, of serious play. I am aware that I am dealing with large philosophical issues in my mind as I’m working, in tandem with mundane thoughts of domestic life, for example, and this mix is very much a part of going through life. I want my titles to have that mix too; to have that complexity, ambiguity – that seriousness blended with humour.

 Your works employ a vivid and rich colour palette applied with a variety of painterly approaches from dry brushing to building up section in thin glazes. Does working on many paintings at the same time help to create a sense of cohesion between the works?

I work on many at the same time as it fits with the ‘constellation of activity’ mentioned earlier, so does using a variety of painterly techniques which I really enjoy doing. I like the openness of possibility this way of working affords me. I move between works in an intuitive way; I’ll work on the wall, the floor, the desk – moving between different sizes of canvas, placing the paintings next to each other to see what conversations happen. There is a tension with this, as I want cohesion but I also don’t want the paintings to all do the same thing, to say the same thing. This is a challenge I find endlessly engaging. 

At the moment I am mainly working on my solo show for the Margot Samel gallery in New York later on in the year. 

Installation image of Focus with Amy Winstanley

WORKPLACE

Discover Amy Winstanley's innovative paintings in Workplace's online exhibition series. Engage with her distinct style, showcasing emerging talent in contemporary art.

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