Trained as a painter, Brad Winchester’s approach is deeply rooted to the history of the medium, but his practice has long since taken a conceptual turn that challenges these constructs by emphasizing process and materiality. Over the past several years, the artist has developed a mixed media practice that relies on the experiential relationship to art objects. His works have an animate corporeal quality that encourages the viewer to engage the work in a philosophical discourse around how art functions via its materiality.
Winchester’s practice is defined by his relationship with material processes and repetition. The work begins with the conceptual exercise of deconstruction, where the artist pulls apart the weft and warp of Belgian linen to open up a new relationship with this classic material. He then laboriously reconstructs the material by weaving it back together in specific patterns and coarseness. He then puts the reconstructed material through multiple sessions of dying and bleaching before painting the compositions with acrylic and oil. The linen is then carefully transplanted and restretched over frame like structures constructed out of hand milled bass wood or yellow cedar.
Winchester received his BFA from The Art Institute of Chicago in 2000. He lives and works in St. Louis, MO.
