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Latest Artist's Video:
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Artist Exhibitions:
Calendar 2007: New York;
Barcelona; St. Petersburg;
Forence; Holland
Calendar 2006: Holland Art
Fair, The Hague. April
Calender 2005:
SEVILLA: January
BEJING: CIGE art fair, May
MARBELLA: September
DALLAS: October
FLORENCE: Biennale, November
GERMANY: Kamp-Lintfort, Daniel
Wustlich Design, permanent
Calendar 2004
NEW YORK: "On a Water Note",
Solo at ...
Further Information
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Artist Galleries:
BEIJING NYARTS SPACE: BEIJING
OLYMPIC GAMES ART Project
Pls. Copy/paste the link below
http://www.nyartsbeijing.cn/pfw
ebplus/Exhibitions/lipDetailSho
w.aspx?Id=20
NEW YORK: Abraham Lubelski,
473 Broadway Gallery, 7th
Floor, e-mail:
nyartsmaga@aol.com
AMSTERDAM: Gallery Mia
Joosten, Keizersgracht 520
(close to Leidsestraat).
BERLIN: Berliner Kunst ...
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Collections:
LATIN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM,
MIAMI ART CENTER, Miami, USA
Private Collections,
Hilversum, Zaandam, The Hague,
Amsterdam, in The Netherlands.
Private Collection, Australia
Private Collections in Italy,
Spain and France.
Corporate Collection,
Rotterdam, The Netherlands....
Further Information
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Commissions:
COMMISSIONED WORK
"Winand Staring is a master of
colour.
We have commissioned a very
large work of art from him,
which completely transformed
the feel of our house.
A large, spacious room
previously fairly lacking in
character, our living room is
now bursting with the yellows
and turquoises of the ...
Further Information
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Reviews for Winand Staring:
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In fact, Hecht takes it one step further, all but dubbing Staring as the savior of contemporary abstract expressionism....Staring’s paintings requiring an interpretive leap is sufficient evidence, in Hecht’s opinion, of Staring’s artistic superhero status...
NY Arts Magazine June 2004, Winand Staring’s Waterworld, By Christina Vassallo
Winand Staring lives for (and because of) water. This international artist spent twenty years in the field of economic development trying to unlock the mystery of effective global water management in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Peru, and Guatemala. Staring’s paintings are saturated with a reverence for the earth and its natural resources, especially water. His work predicts a beautiful world united by droplets, rivers, and gracefully flowing channels, making him the perfect poster child for sociological improvements through art. Staring’s first solo exhibition in New York at Broadway Gallery and the simultaneous publishing of Abstraction in the Elements: On a Water Note (NY Arts Books) in February introduced this artist’s approach to making paintings about nature to the American public, a demographic which could learn from the artist’s relationship with the elements.
Winand Staring is first and foremost a colorist. His luscious swirls of blue and choppy strokes of green portray the mercurial tendencies of water in a familiar way while the colors on the opposite end of the spectrum are used to add a visual quality to the work that is not necessarily intrinsic to the subject. The kinetic whorls of citrusy oranges and yellows surrounding an ultramarine depth in Ice Waterman resemble a Doppler radar weather map. This imaginative rendering of water was influenced by the two decades Staring spent conducting ecological assessments of water resources and studying charts and maps of the local terrain. A depiction of water such as this shows Staring’s ability to achieve a delicate balance between abstract expressionism and subtle figuration, which is emphasized by his employment of titles such as Deep Seas, Furious Water, and Water Unites.
Staring’s titles evoke an attitude toward his paintings and help to emphasize the visual effect, much like the work of Paul Jenkins whose abstractions also relied on titles to make the connection to nature in his forms apparent. Winand Staring’s formal approach recalls the strong sense of movement and energy in Jenkins’s late-1960s paintings. Both artists avoid painting landscapes or waterscapes in the wholly traditional sense. Instead, they visualize their reactions to the sites, capturing the vitality and ever-changing cycle of life. Staring’s Water Reflections reaches a similar ephemeral and organic quality as is displayed in Jenkins’s work. "My paintings are about a quest for harmony and alignment," says Staring, "my concern for water forms an important part of that quest." The artist creates images which capture the essence of his ideologies and represent his beloved subject of water.
Abstraction of the Elements takes an in-depth look at the recent work of Winand Staring and puts the artist’s oeuvre in conversation with a roster of international artists who also represent nature through abstract art. Joo Hyun Kang, Pat Steir, and Susan Melikian Steinsieck, among others, are discussed in relation to the trend of abstracted nature art. The focus, however, is on Staring and how his paintings not only chronicle his spiritual connection to the earth but also remind us of how precious this resource is. Out of the twenty-one essays and excerpts in the book, nine are devoted to Staring’s work. Most of the other critical essays explore the direction in which abstract art is heading—either lamenting it or applauding it.
John Perrault’s essay, "Whatever Happened to Abstract Painting?" states that the art world needs a remedy for the presently neglected state of abstract art. In his essay, "Winand Staring’s Element," Jamey Hecht would have us believe that Staring is the remedy Perrault seeks. In fact, Hecht takes it one step further, all but dubbing Staring as the savior of contemporary abstract expressionism. Hecht’s reasoning is weak, arguing that Staring imbues his painted boxes with an "innocence and candor that is altogether surprising in an abstraction" and that Staring’s paintings require an interpretive leap is sufficient evidence, in Hecht’s opinion, of Staring’s artistic superhero status. But, doesn’t all semi-representative/semi-pure abstraction require an interpretive leap? Perrault may think that Staring can save the day, and although his paintings stir up a visceral response, abstract art needs a bit more help to regain the spotlight it once enjoyed. Mark Daniel Cohen’s essay on Jan Green’s and Peter Schroth’s recent gallery exhibitions and the Maureen Dougherty essay examining the daring color schemes in Hansueli Urwyler’s work let us know that Winand Staring has some capable allies.
SCULPTING WATER: By Danielle O'Steen (NY Arts Magazine, Dec. 2003)
Winand Staring has created a context of nature in his paintings that speaks to his own experiences with the land and with water. He seeks to pay tribute to nature's precious resources and portray a seemingly objective entity, water, as a personal experience. The connection between the artist and the paintings sparks a physicality in Staring's work that, with his technique of using strong layers of oil paint, pays tribute to sculptural concerns. The bodily nature of his work not only refers to the artist himself, but also to bodily qualities of nature. Similarly, the strong physical nature in Staring's work is accompanied with a constant, restless motion created by his palette and brushstrokes. While Staring works with abstracted form in all of his work, there is a variation in his portraiture of nature and her precious resource, water.
Staring's Seascape Green provides a more traditional example of the artist's perception of these natural forces. The construction of the painting mimics a traditional approach of representing the separation of water and sky with a horizon line. The strong white lines cutting through the composition enforces this separation. However, the palette and the brushstrokes evoke a unity in the scene to create an eternal image of the ocean and the sky. This work exemplifies Staring's reflection of nature as an important spiritual entity in his life. A piece of the artist is left behind in this work. Seascape Green sets the stage for more abstracted works like Seadance, where the theme of water and the ocean reigns supreme.
Seadance creates an abstracted atmosphere where Staring's creativity can connect with the universality of water. He uses a varied palette of bold colors that, combined with the rich texture of the oil paint, portrays motion and timelessness. Colors melt together to create thick layers that evoke the heavy layers of water throughout the natural cycle. The fluidity in Staring's work is reminiscent of the Abstract Expressionist Helen Frankenthaler's thin washes where the concentration of color provides the movement. Staring, however, is able to create fluid motion by combining a traditional medium with concerns of abstract art.
Born in Venezuela, Staring's extensive travelling and background in water management provide the basis for his interests in motion and natural forces. His constant physical interactions with water and earth have formed his technique of creating waterscape art in addition to adding the sculptural quality to his work. Staring's interest in heralding the forces of nature follows a similar mindset to earthwork art that has grown drastically since its introduction in the 1970s. Artists such as Robert Smithson, Walter de Maria and Michael Heizer led the way for art that created a physical connection between the artist and the earth. In the way that Staring's paintings portray eternal motion in water sources, earthwork art strives to acknowledge the earth in its timeless form. Recent earthwork art has appeared from artists such as Lois Dellert, who is more formal in his endeavors than his predecessors were. Dellert exhibits hand-packed dirt to embody the layering of earth on a human-sized scale. Similarly, Staring shows an interest in isolating aspects of nature to the scale of a canvas. James Turrell is another artist that works on framing characteristics of nature without removing its grandiose qualities. His Meeting (1986) is able to frame sections of the sky so that its color and intensity can be celebrated. Staring achieves a similar feat in capturing the spectrum of color that is possible with water.
However, comparing earthwork art and waterscape paintings is difficult because of the extreme difference in their respective materials. Staring's paintings portray aspects of nature but also express an intensely personal connection. Works such as World to Come and The Ocean Child embody characteristics of nature in addition to adding personal subject matter based on the titles. The artist appears as an observer in the scene and personal experience becomes a key player. Although the presence of the artist does exist in earthwork art, there is a limit to the artist's imagination. In World to Come, Staring is able to recreate a genesis by evoking concepts of water. The balance of color and the delicate brushstrokes create movement in an abstracted form. The Ocean Child has more strength, which furthers the presence of a life force in the composition. Where the flotsam and jetsam in the ocean can create life, a mish-mash of oil paint in Staring's work can create a life force based on his imagination.
Following a tradition of holistic art, Staring states on his website: "The basis to create this art lays in the 'creative body' of the artist, that in his interconnections with his own world activates the cosmic energy that emerges from his higher self and liberates this creative energy in the form of spontanic images, reflecting real life as a supreme creative process in universe that touches everyone and everything like a unison colored net, connected in harmony." Works such as Eternity 2, Eternity 3, and Eternity 4 are exemplary of Staring's holistic philosophy in their timeless compositions. The piles of oil paint in the center help to nurture the smooth and balanced swirls that form the outside perimeters of the painting. The arms of paint encircling the center is reminiscent of the cycles of nature. Staring's work acts as records for his own artistic experiences that are contained in the cosmos.
Apparent in Staring's paintings is his ability to travel between the reality of the natural world and his own experience. Therefore, he is able to tackle issues of physicality by creating a sculptural environment in his compositions while pushing a traditional medium to its limit. He also uses color relationships to evoke the entirety of water as nature's most precious resource. Staring's artistic choices manage to challenge any concept of water as static, predictable or monotonous.
WINAND STARING'S ELEMENT
By Jamey Hecht, New York Arts Magazine, Sept 2003
Winand Staring's large canvases stride toward abstract expressionism, but they also engage in subtle figuration as the compositions charge ahead. Just as a map presents itself as both a mathematical survey and a Rorschack-like tableau for interpretive perception, Staring's Lion King knows itself as both lion and landscape. That Italy is a boot, that the Moon shows a face with an open mouth, are direct expressions of our humanity; they exemplify the character of our cognitive and perceptual equipment. These paintings are about water, and while much of their visual vocabulary is traditional to that subject — ultramarine and cerulean, waveforms and light-obscuring depths — a great part of it works through the same kind of interpretive leap as does the Man in the Moon. The reds are oceanic for us; the verticals are blasts of chaotic weather; the tiny oblong at the bottom right corner of Abundance of Life II reads like a foundering boat. Staring's work sometimes resembles the that of Odilon Redon, the great Symbolist who made similar uses of amorphous color and placed
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