Alfredo Winkler

My paintings are mainly in the modern figurative style, though I do not let my “inspiration” be confined by a limited style, so, some of my work can be classified ( if this is really necessary) as impressionism or even academic paintings. Anyway I don’t feel that there is a need for an artist’s work to be bound to a unique style. The same approach goes when it comes to painting themes such as landscapes, figures, seascapes, still life; I feel myself free to try my hand at any of these. As I see it, paintings are always a combination of: color balance, dark and light areas, composition, rhythmic design, texture and something difficult to define, maybe a combination of all these elements, which turn out to give a good painting a unique strength to communicate something pleasant and/or unexpected to the observer.
Oils and water colors are the techniques I mostly work with
A brief Curriculum:
Drawing and painting were my choice since I was a young boy, and later, as I grew up, I began attending a course in an advertising design school in São Paulo, and later I went to work as assistant layout-man in an Ad. Agency. and at the same time I continued my painting studies with an Italian painter Borghese who teached in a traditional Art School we have here in S. Paulo. At that time we used to go painting out-doors “plein-air” in the outskirts of the city. That was a good experience, for I would share painting experiences with other students and more experinced painters. I learned a lot during those years.
As my carrier in Advertising developed - it has been my way of earning a living - I began to sell my paintings and showing them in exhibitions and Art galleries.
Later on - I was already well over my thirties - I decided to enter an Art University which didn’t add much to my painting performance, it was mostly a theoretical course intended to graduate Art Teachers. Anyway, I improved my knowledge in Art History and art theories, although that didn’t contribute to my painting skills, it gave me a cultural background.
In the mid seventies I resumed my training in live model drawing and along with friends painters we occasionally got together to go painting out-doors, sometimes we even went to spend some days in nearby cities, mostly at the seashore to paint landscapes and seascapes. I continued that practice in the next years, because I think “plein-air” painting gives you the possibility of capturing the atmosphere of lights and shades of a landscape in a more emotional and realistic way than studio painting based on memory or on photography.