Amy Van Winkle-Mine for safe keeping

Amy Van Winkle

(USA, b. 1969)

Born in Norwood, currently lives and works in Chicago, Amy Van Winkle is a self-taught artist. Her early artistic pursuits involved a #2 pencil and a sketchpad. From there she began creating mixed media work on canvas with old textbooks and acrylic. Her influences include Gerhard Richter, Mark Rothko and Cy Twombly. Along with these artist's influences, there's always a hint of structure and control to her abstract paintings. Amy Van Winkle has participated in multiple shows in the U.S.A. including Freeport Art Museum, and her works are included in the collection of various noted enterprises including Bank of Holland.

Amy works mainly in the medium of Encaustic and oil paint. During the creative process of her oil paintings, she usually scrapes the surface on which it adds texture and creates a dialog between the fused layer. Encaustic, with over 3000 years of history, is a wax based medium applied on mural paintings in ancient Greece. As the oldest known pigment binder, encaustic combines molten beeswax with dry pigment and tree resin which makes it impervious to moisture and can last long. In Amy Van Winkle’s encaustic works, she keeps the transparency of watercolors and the volume of oil paint.