Connie Winters Biography |
Perhaps best-known for her vibrant, Impressionist-style paintings, Connie Winters has a unique sensitivity to color. I see so much color and I’m drawn to it. She explains, "I think I see more than most people; while some would look at a road and see gray asphalt, I will see shades of lavender, blue, and even red. It’s just the way it appears to me."
Winters’ unusual gift for color has enabled her to excel as a painter, capturing the lush splendor of spring gardens and other colorful scenes on canvas in rich, brilliant hues. She paints intimate interiors, sunny landscapes, and riots of flowers, using color as a way of expressing happiness. A passionate gardener winters cultivates her arbors, paths, and flowers, encouraging color as on her canvas. For this North Carolina artist, color is a key ingredient in each of her paintings. "When I’m painting, it’s almost like a puzzle, putting colors together," she explains. "Putting cool reds and warm reds together creates such excitement. Excitement involves the viewer." Although Winters has painted most of her life, she didn’t initially set out to become a professional. About 15 years ago she decided to sell her antique store and mail-order business and become a full-time artist. She gave herself two years to develop. She started selling her paintings much sooner than expected through a couple of galleries. Now seven well-known galleries in the Southeast represent her work. Winters travels frequently and also runs a popular Painting in Provence program, which allows students to travel to France to study painting each year. Her paintings often reflect her travels through Europe and reveal her ongoing fascination with the countryside of Provence, France and Tuscany, Italy. Several of Winters’ paintings have recently been purchased by The Cloister on Sea Island, Georgia. Her work can also be found in some of the country’s most prominent private art collections, including that of John Randolph Hearst, Jr. of New York. |