Breaking away from the minimalist field paintings he produced during the 1960s and 70s, Winters turned his attention to the crystalline and botanic forms only visible through the lens of the microscope. Winters’ fascination with microscopic forms reflects his interest in the material building blocks of paint, pigment, canvas and paper, which he uses as a metaphor for the foundations of plant and animal life. During the 80s, Winters focused on organic forms — buds, rhizomes, spores, sprouts and roots — in his drawings and paintings. While these images attempt to capture essential characteristics of the subject, they are not meticulous scientific illustrations. Rather, Winters’ images convey a sense of mystery and discovery as they explore the plant forms.

In one series of drawings known as Dark Plants, the subjects are abstracted from a recognizable context and executed in charcoal and white chalk on blank sheets of paper. The texture of the paper and the smudged lines and shadows of charcoal create an atmosphere in which the subjects seem to be suspended. Overall, Winters drawings grapple with the art of drawing and the presence of the artist’s hand in gestural mark making. Dark Plans 13 (1982), in the collection of the Bell Gallery, features two drawings of the same plant. By rendering the plant in two different sizes, Winters plays with scale and confounds the viewer’s sense of dimension:  Are these plants tall cousins of palm trees, or are they microorganisms? The darkness named in the title is thus both the obscurity of the unnamed plant and the rich blackness of the charcoal in which it is represented.

This drawing was acquired by the David Winton Bell Gallery with funds from The Albert and Vera List Endowment.