ACH Spotlight: Claire Wintle - Portrait of an Oil Painter

Oil-painter Claire Wintle is one of eight Tulsa-based artists who received a residency in L.A. through a pilot collaboration between A Creative House and Tulsa Creative Engine. At 22, White was the youngest artist chosen for the inaugural residency which grants each recipient the time and space to work on their practice and make connections in the City of Angels. 

Wintle first became invested in oil-painting in her sophomore year at the University of Tulsa, where she studied under Mark Lewis. White discovered her natural inclination for the medium and, with her professor’s encouragement, focused her artistic development on oil and canvas. 

Wintle’s works have been shown at exhibitions with the University of Tulsa, but she’s been expanding her showing to the larger community. Recently, she displayed her work with the Center for Queer Prairie Studies. 

Inspired by the works of Francis Bacon, Aron Wiesenfeld, Sasha Gordon, Jonathan Wateridge, and Jotham Malave, Wintle often takes the human body as her subject. “I also want my subjects to look out of place or uncanny, so I’ll add things like gloves, masks, PPE, or anything else that obfuscates features and adds a certain tension to the piece,” Wintle said. “I’m very interested in anatomy, so I’ll often play with cross-sections of the human body as well as medical imagery.” 

In L.A., Wintle spent the majority of her time working on her largest painting yet. “It’s 5’5” on its tallest side and is a self portrait of me next to an anatomical model,” she explained. “I’ll also be completing two smaller paintings that will work as complimentary pieces to the self portrait. All of these paintings are in line with my current body of work focusing on the relationship between the body, climate change, and the natural world.”  

Wintle’s focus on the natural world often takes inspiration from her local environment: Northeastern Oklahoma.  

“A big part of growing up in the midwest is this feeling of overarching loneliness or despair (no offense to any of my fellow Tulsans), which is something that I want to creep into my work,” Wintle said. “I’m kinda in love with the idea of a dreary plain landscape, and I want to incorporate the natural scenery of rural Oklahoma into the background of my pieces. My work also deals with themes of climate change, and I try to communicate this through my own lens and understanding, so any sort of work I make about the environment directly correlates to how climate change affects northeast Oklahoma specifically.”  

Now that she has graduated from TU, and with the boost of the residency, Wintle intends to submit more work to galleries and continue growing her already impressive repertoire. Keep eye out for Wintle’s work by following her on instagram: @clairewintle.