Article By: Jacquelyn Herbert
Photographs By: Kumasi Lewis

“Drawing is like a muscle.  You have to exercise it to stay in shape,” comments N.C. Winters outside the 1988 Gallery on Melrose.   Standing feet away from one of his many drawings you can tell his ‘artistic muscles’ are well toned and he’s no new member to this kind of gym.  Always busying himself with art, he’s constantly participating in galleries, doing freelance work and draws 5 different comics weekly, encompassing workplace humor, pop culture jokes, all things Mac related, and the ups and downs of the freelance artist.  With each comic dialing into different interests and quarks in Winter’s character one can’t help but laugh as he points out the contradictory way we need Wii to get us to work out, the fact that Madonna’s got a strangely fit bod for a woman her age, or how when it comes to apps, we’re never quite satiated.

“I always tell people, first I drew on walls, then on my homework, then on my taxes.  It’s part of what makes me, me.” Winters proudly claims (even though he knows what he wants and who he is) that he’s never fearful to venture into the unknown.  Drawing everyday for almost a year straight, Winters says that it was more of an exercise in discipline and an opportunity to experiment, “I haven’t had time to be experimental and this allowed me the chance to stretch my wings and try things you can’t do on a deadline.”  Winters has been drawing and creating art for countless years, “I’ve always liked drawing but I can’t remember when I first made the conscious effort to keep drawing,” he says.

(Winters alongside "Nothing to Cringe At")

Originally pitched as an exercise from a professor, Winters took to the challenge of drawing every day for a year by leaving little squares of paper and pencils all around so he had no excuse not to draw, going to such lengths as to leave them next to the bed and even in his bathroom.  After almost an entire year, Winter’s exercise left him with a progression of art distinctly his style as he melds fantasy universes with pop culture references and influences in what most people would call a cartoon-like style.  “I had a lot of people tell me to take the lines off my art but I like to force the viewer to recognize that they’re looking at a flat image,” Winters says in defense of the thick lines present in a lot of his artwork giving it a very illustrated look and yet at the same time playful, regardless of the piece’s subject matter.  His style even exudes a lightheartedness and sense of beauty in such interestingly dark subject matter as the character Marla from Fight Club cries in one of his works over a banner pronouncing ‘I am Jack’s Broken Heart.’

Working as a freelance production artist Winters states that, “At work I’m a machine and I’m rigorously structured, all about deadlines.  But at home it’s just the opposite.  Work frees up the other side of my brain so I can draw on the weekends.”  And rather than take a wildly artistic job, Winters is content to keep his work and his art separate.  “That way I get to be alpha and omega.  I only take the projects I like, the projects I want to do.  I want to be able to defend it if it’s good and take the fall for it if it’s bad.”

After college he spent sometime working in New York before he relocated to the Los Angeles area.  “My art didn’t really fit in anywhere I was before, but when I came to LA there was a whole scene for my kind of art and I instantly fit in.”  Winters prolific works in the area of pop surrealism immediately found a home in multiple galleries and places in Los Angeles where art influenced heavily by cartoons, video games and animation had already become a respectable market.  Winters says that compared to other places he’s lived, “LA just has a different appreciation and attitude about art.”

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What’s Next?

Since his move to Los Angeles Winters has been in multiple shows at the 1988 gallery focusing mostly on pop culture and will return there again in January of 2010 for the ‘He-Man and the masters of the universe’ show.  But outside of that, Winters is keeping himself plenty busy preparing for a solo show next year. “If you’re going to go after it seriously you have to see it as work,” he says as he proceeds to talk about the basis of his upcoming show and his newly born inspiration; his son. Winters solo show will take his artistic style on from a new perspective influenced heavily by the new little guy in his life, featuring a lot of ugly dolls, little monsters and other tiny sized creatures.  Winters claims, “It’s going to be playfully, monstery stuff for next Halloween.”

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Connect with N.C. Winters:

Website

Twitter