Cygnus: Paintings of Greenland, Iceland, and Sweden

Roger Winter
May 30-July 3, 2015
Opening reception Saturday, May 30, 6:30-8:30 pm

Berit's Iceberg, 2013, oil on linen, 28" x 108"

Kirk Hopper Fine Art is excited to announce our latest exhibition, Cygnus: Paintings of Greenland, Iceland, and Sweden by Roger Winter. Winter found his source material for this series during recent trips to these three Nordic countries. Their landscapes evoke a palette of bright colors not usually associated with his work that, combined with his mastery of brushstroke and composition, create some of Winter's most striking paintings to date. Vibrant purples, blues, orange, and mint green dominate the sky in Faxa Bay (2014) while Berit's Iceberg (2013) shows a more restrained linear composition, still utilizing rich goldenrod and a multitude of blues. Winter's work is strongly based in his personal experience, and his memories in these countries is best described in his own words. The following are excerpts from a series of short essays written by the artist in 2015:

Greenland: "'Beautiful' seems not too strong a word for the luminosity and interaction of shapes in the icebergs, especially when mixed with the light of the midnight sun. A woman in Ilulissat told me that she was once afraid of ice, but was now more afraid of water. Her fear is well grounded; Greenland's ice sheet covers 80% of the land."

Iceland: "W.H. Auden wrote that Iceland was holy ground, 'with the most magical light of anywhere on earth.' I'm often embarrassed when painters (or poets) talk about 'light,' but in visits to Iceland I have had to reevaluate that prejudice. To walk along the water's edge at Faxa Bay and to watch the unpredictable colors and light of late afternoon slowly turn into moonlight, I must agree with Mr. Auden's choice of words."

Sweden: "Jeanette and I made a recent visit to the medieval Swedish city of Kalmar on the Baltic, and probably because of our familiarity with the landscape, I became more caught up with the various waterfowl, especially the huge white swans. How gorgeous they looked in the midsummer sun! The swan, that famous shapeshifter in ancient mythologies from Greece to Scandinavia and beyond, is one of the eighty-eight recognized constellations, Cygnus. Watching them in Kalmar seemed and experience outside of time."

Roger Winter, born in Denison, Texas, currently lives and works in Santa Fe and New York. He holds a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin and a MFA from the University of Iowa in Iowa City. He returned to Texas in 1961 where he taught drawing and painting at Southern Methodist University for twenty-six years. Winter's exhibition history has included museums and galleries nationwide and his work is currently in the collections of the Atlantic Richfield Company in Los Angeles, Dallas Museum of Art, El Paso Museum of Art, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Frito-Lay Corporate Collection, Meadows Museum of Art, McNay Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Portland Museum of Art in Maine, and Southwestern Bell Corporation, among others.