About Jane Winakur
Jane WInakur
Education
Jane Winakur was born in Dallas, Texas, in 1941. Her artistic mother encouraged her to study art at an early age, sending her to classes at the Dallas Museum. Jane majored in Fine Art at Ohio State University, where the emphasis was on abstract expressionism. There, she earned a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree in painting with an English minor. As an undergraduate, she won many awards and was included in graduate shows. She also had the great fortune to be a student of Hoyt Sherman, the mentor and teacher of Roy Lichtenstein. Another of her professors was Chuck Csuri, who was renowned for his pioneering work in computer art.
Professional Career
After leaving college, Jane spent several years in New York City where she exhibited her work at Gallery 78 until her first child arrived. Jane and her family then moved to California. There, her focus was raising her two children and helping her husband operate a successful home improvement center.
Professional Career
After leaving college, Jane spent several years in New York City where she exhibited her work at Gallery 78 until her first child arrived. Jane and her family then moved to California. There, her focus was raising her two children and helping her husband operate a successful home improvement center.
In the early eighties, she again began to seriously prepare for her professional artist career as an artist. Then in 1992, she began her exclusive relationship with Valerie Miller Fine Art in Palm Desert, CA where she remained until the gallery closed in 1997. After that time, she was primarily represented in the contemporary Ross Watkins Gallery in Palm Desert, CA. Besides doing commissions and showing her work a variety of Country Clubs in the Palm Desert area, she was also represented in the following list of fine galleries:
- Ross Watkins Gallery – Palm Desert, CA
- Ross Watkins – Maui, Hawaii
- The Art Connection – Pacific Design Center, LA, CA
- Larry Smith Fine Art – West Hollywood, CA
- Niemann Hayden Fine Art – Scottsdale, AZ
- Gallery P – Las Vegas, NV
- Joseph Wise Fine Art Gallery – Laguna Beach, CA
Inspiration
Working in collage, she enjoyed a total freedom in her use of various painting techniques using a wide array of mixed media to produce exciting effects. The use of collage allowed her to control the sometimes wild and colorful paintings so the viewer is forced to “look at this!”. It also allowed for the selection of images and symbols that flow from the imagination. Through abstraction Jane expressed a non-religious spirituality that is non-verbal and universal in nature. Her years of Zen Meditation Practice are evidenced in her subject matter. She preferred to allow the work to speak for itself and for the viewer to interpret it according to his or her own experience.
Retirement
After Jane retired from her art career in the mid-2000’s, she moved from Palm Desert, CA to Aliso Viejo, CA to be closer to family and the ocean. During that move, half of her paintings were destroyed as the moving truck caught fire on its second trip down to her new home. Thus, the remaining paintings held by her daughter are all that is left of her artwork. Jane remained in Orange County until her passing in 2022.