Winston Roeth / Bio
Winston Roeth (b. 1945, Chicago) is known for his luminous paintings and the pictorial form of the grid. His entire body of work is characterized by his exploration of color. His work is embedded in the abstract geometric tradition. It is related to Agnes Martin’s clear Grid Paintings, Josef Albers’ Homage to the Square series and Donald Judd’s research in color. Roeth's compositions are simple. Often a picture is divided into a geometric harmony of colored lines and planes on either aluminium or wooden panels or paper. In the case of works on paper for example, the white ground of the paper is broken up by shimmeringly luminous lines in a perfect balance of light, depth, and color. Subtle color effects occur on the crossings of the lines, which gives a strong expression. The works have overall compositions. There is no hierarchy. Most of the time they look like parts of the whole. It helps us to focus only on the luminosity of the colors. The works are exquisitely painted in several layers of velvety, pure pigment and polyurethane dispersion and reveal their secrets slowly: quiet combinations that play gentle tricks on the eye. In a world so accustomed to instant gratification Winston Roeth's works require and reward an unusual level of contemplation.
Roeth, who is based in Beacon, in New York State, has exhibited extensively. His work is in many important collections, including Museum of Modern Art, New York; Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Kunstmuseum Basel; Museum Wiesbaden; Benesse House, Naoshima, Japan; the Fogg Art Museum (Harvard); the San Jose Museum of Contemporary Art, California and the celebrated Panza Collection where his paintings form a site-specific installation in one of the gilded and panelled rooms of the seventeenth century Palazzo Ducale di Sassuolo in Varese, Italy. In 2020-2021 Roeth had an overview exhibition, entitled Speed of Light, in Museum Wiesbaden, on whch occasion a comprehensive catalogue was published.
