Robin Winters

ROBIN WINTERS (USA, 1950).
"A fine time to decide", 1984.
Mixed media and acrylic on canvas.
Measurements: 250 x 180 cm.

"A fine time to decide" by Robin Winters, is a painting that reflects his interest in ambiguity, fragmented narrative and the connection between everyday objects and personal or collective experiences.

In the center of the composition is a small dark circle in which a solitary figure appears, located in what looks like a corridor or an architectural space. The contrast between the figurative detail of the circle and the abstraction of the rest of the canvas generates a tension between the recognizable and the enigmatic. The viewer is caught between the sense of vastness, silence and emptiness of the background, and the invitation to enter the interior scene, which suggests a moment of decision, transit or solitude.

Overall, the work embodies the way Winters used to mix personal narrative with the symbolic and open to interpretation, playing with layers of paint, textures, and the insertion of images within images to speak to memory, perception, and human decisions.

Robin Winters is an American conceptual artist born in 1950 in Benicia, California. From a young age he showed an interest in collecting objects - such as glass bottles found on the beach or under old buildings - something that would later greatly influence his work. As a teenager he participated in school and work-study programs, and after a brief stay in Alaska he returned to California, taking on a variety of jobs, including as a caregiver for autistic children. Winters became known for his interactive installations that combine durational performance with other visual media. In some of his assemblages he invites the audience to perform or interact, employs dinner parties, free consultations, blind dates-devices that establish a relationship between the art, the artist and the viewers. He has worked with a very wide variety of materials: painting, sculpture (bronze, ceramics, glass), drawing, photography, video, film, installations, and even booming performative elements. Some of the recurring motifs in his work are faces, bottles, hats, boats and cars.

Among the milestones of his career it is worth mentioning that in the 70's he made performances of long duration, such as "The Secret Life of Bob-E" or the traveling exhibition Norman Thomas Travelling Museum, with objects collected and assembled in a trailer or a van. In 1975 he participated for the first time in the Whitney Museum Biennial with a durational performance. In subsequent decades he continued to explore the exhibition space, the social, the relational, collaborations, urban interventions, as well as exhibitions that bring together his more diversified art. He lives in New York and has also taught art education.