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The Cotton Candy Underworld of Richmond’s Wingchow

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Richmond abstract painter Christina Wingchow‘s impeccable use of color and hypnotic sense of dimension is what first drew RVA Mag to her artwork. The artist has grown from painting for fun in high school to majoring in paint and printmaking at VCU, to helping to launch the Endeavor RVA gallery, to exhibiting at Virginia MOCA. And now, Wingchow has just premiered her first solo exhibit, “FLUX,” at Artspace Richmond.

“Sweet Dream”

Opening at the end of August, the colorful show is full of nature motifs and flowing movement. The abstract and figurative works feature what looks like anthropomorphic dew droplets living in a cotton-candy underworld. Looking at Wingchow’s work is like reaching into the drain that leads to the Upside Down in “Stranger Things” — if the “Upside Down” got a Candyland makeover that was splattered on canvas and wood. Her artwork, consisting of a menagerie of vibrant eye-popping blobs, swirling colors, and shape-shifting creatures, are all influenced by nature, energy, magic, and dreams.

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“Everything around us is constantly moving and changing. My fascination in this natural state expressed itself in my work long before I consciously acknowledged it. I paint intuitively, and improvisation is key,” Wingchow said in a statement about her art.  “It is inspired by movement, and driven by weird thoughts, restless energy, and the need for free play,”

Wingchow has made a habit of doing some kind of art every day, whether it be drawing, painting, or writing about her work. She urges other aspiring artists to take the advice she had to remind herself at the beginning of her career, “Remember, this is what you want to do. Make sure you make time for it.”

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“All artists go through struggles and difficulty in figuring out what they really want to do or explore since there’s only so much time you get,” said Wingchow. “The most important thing is trying different things. And, of course, continuing to do it.”

“Flux” will be on display at Artspace Richmond, located at 31 E. 3rd St.,  until Sept. 23. You can follow Wingchow’s Instagram, @wing.chow, to keep up to date on her latest projects.

“Plaything”
‘The Dawning Of”

All Photos Courtesy of Wingchow. Top Image: “Caretaker” 

VMFA fellow Jane Winfield tries to understand the world through abstract painting

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This is the first in a series of articles featuring the 2017-2018 VMFA fellowship recipients.   

Jane Winfield has always painted.

Some of her paintings takes years to make, some only days. All of them make you pause and think, though.

Winfield, a current VMFA Fellowship recipient, paints mostly large-scale abstract paintings. She said she uses her art to suss out spatial incongruencies.

“I think it’s when things confuse me, like if a shadow looks heavier than an object or a telephone pole is blocking somebody at the same pace that they’re walking towards you,” Winfield said. “I just like it when I don’t understand something because it means I can fill in the blanks. I can just make it all up, which is all I ever wanted to do.”

Photo by Jane Winfield

Winfield utilizes whatever materials she can, some traditional and others not so much, making for a wide range of surfaces.

Winfield’s husband Gabe has brought home things like concrete and tar to experiment with, she’s also used a baby bath sponge, and even improvised with flour and food dye when she’s run out of paint.

“I like that paint can go on anything, it’s so malleable and it’s so sexy but also forgiving,” Winfield said. “It can do anything you want it to do. The great thing is it’s just chaos and my job is to attempt to control it. I never really succeed but I love seeing what happens.”

She says her process is messy, but that makes it all the more fun.

“Sometimes I’ll paint on something for a while then forget about it and then go back years later and paint again,” Winfield said. “Sometimes I’ll leave it outside then I’ll paint over it, giving it a new texture. I feel like there should be no real limitations on what it is.”

After Winfield received her MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2012, she taught painting and drawing classes at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. More recently, Winfield has been teaching drawing classes at her alma mater VCU since moving back home to Richmond.

Winfield’s had her first solo exhibition, “Signs of Life,”  in Savannah Georgia, showcased more than 10 of her original paintings, at the end of last year. Currently, she’s working on another exhibition that will be in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ Pauley Center in August.

Winfield said she’s grateful to be an artist, getting to do what she enjoys day in and day out.

“I’m allowed to experiment where a lot of people don’t get that opportunity because they have to go to work and grind it out,” Winfield said. “I don’t know, maybe they find the same kind of love, but I feel like I’m learning all of the time and that’s what I love the most. I never feel like I’ve got it. I never feel like I’m winning so I’m always trying harder.”

And things have been a little harder, at least time wise. The Winfield family has doubled over the past year and a half with 18-month-old Rocko and one-month-old June.

  Photo by Jane Winfield

“Before the babies, it was just painting all the time and working,” she said. “Now I hustle around the house then paint whenever I can, which has been really interesting because you realize your limitations are just as much of an excitement.”

Winfield said she paints in bed every night. She even has a piece in progress over her bed right now.

“Sometimes the painting just hits you right and they’re done,” Winfield said. “The one I’m struggling with right now, I have over our bed because that way it’ll bug me every morning and antagonizes me until I get it right. It’s been driving me crazy for about a year now.”

For Winfield, art is about better understanding the world and receiving satisfaction through that.

“Above all else, art should not be cynical, especially when the impulse is so readily available to be that way,” she said. “I think things should be about hope because it’s hard. You have to do it because you want to do it and not to teach people a lesson. It’s about joy.”