Terry Winters

Terry Winters (b. 1949, Brooklyn, NY) is an American painter, draughtsman, and printmaker whose work expands the vocabulary of abstract art through a sustained engagement with process, materiality, and systems of knowledge. Rooted in the modernist tradition of non-narrative abstraction, Winters’s paintings often evoke natural and scientific forms—ranging from cellular structures and botanical diagrams to algorithms and cybernetics. He builds his compositions through gestural mark-making and intricate layering, creating spatial fields that blur the boundaries between abstraction and representation. His works suggest both organic growth and technological logic, simultaneously referencing empirical systems and expressive intuition.

After earning his B.F.A. from Pratt Institute in 1971, Winters spent a decade developing his practice privately, deeply influenced by Minimalism and Process Art. His interest in pigment-making and materials led him to study early scientific texts, biology, and mineralogy, informing a practice that treats painting as both construction and inquiry. A pivotal moment came in 1977, when he worked on Walter De Maria’s Lightning Field in New Mexico and encountered the landscape as a transformative visual force. By his 1982 debut at Sonnabend Gallery, Winters had established a mature vocabulary of gestures, grids, and modular forms. Over the years, his work has evolved in scale and complexity, often resembling woven networks or systems in flux. Engaged with contemporary notions of visuality and perception, Winters continues to explore how abstract imagery can convey meaning, movement, and memory without literal depiction.