JIM WINTERS - Reduction Screen Prints & Paintings

The first pictures Jim Winters remembers drawing are the characters from the Flintstones. Growing up in various American suburbs and on Army posts, he was raised on a media diet of daily animated cartoons and afternoon horror movies. An elementary school field trip to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC gave him his first exposure to Pop Art and planted a seed that would affect his entire artistic career. Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe’s Lips (1962) is the painting that Winters credits with turning him on to screen printing and, although he could not know it at the time, would later inform his sensibility as a gay artist.

After receiving a BFA from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia (1988), Winters found work as a gallery assistant and then wrangled a freelance gig at Urban Outfitters, introducing a method of screenprinting graphics directly on to the windows. Inspired by Keith Haring’s subway drawings and also his childhood Wacky Packages, Winters began screenprinting his own stickers and putting them up around Seattle where he moved after Philadelphia, and then in San Francisco where he relocated in 1992. These sticker campaigns not only introduced him to the local art community and gay bar/nightclub scenes, but also landed an illustration gig for Levi’s 501’s. One of his stickers is now in the permanent collection of the SFMOMA, included in Kikibox – a collection of limited edition small works curated by the late Rick Jacobsen whose Kiki Gallery was a seminal player in San Francisco’s Mission School art scene in the 1990s. Winters had his first solo show in San Francisco at the Kiki Gallery in the summer of 1993.

Winters has designed posters for Bill Graham Presents, created screenprinted, hand-drawn and digital illustrations for Fast Company, George, Flaunt and Dinosaur magazines, painted murals for Ken Fulk Inc., lampshades for Tucker & Marks and ceramic wall tiles for The Wiseman Group. He has also worked with the Stancil Studios decorative painting team, joining them as needed for the last 20 years.

All the while he has continued his practice of screen printing. He now specializes in reduction screenprinting, which uses one screen to create an entire edition of prints. Working from photos he’s taken himself, the subject matter primarily features San Francsico and Santa Cruz, California.

In addition to the SFMOMA, Winters' work is also in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art, Denison University, and John Waters’ archives at Wesleyan University.

Follow Jim on Instagram: jim.winters.studio