Just prior to the pandemic, Duke Windsor was teaching painting composition at Art on 30th, a group artwork house in North Park. The idea he was educating his learners was relatively basic: In the absence of a subject matter, a painter will build their possess, typically painting what is about them. He remembers displaying his college students slides of even now everyday living paintings. Just one of these slides was of a Dutch master painting of the artist’s kitchen total with items like a slab of meat, flour and other elements.
“Someone remarked, ‘it form of reminds me of making a pleasant burger,’” recollects Windsor, who experienced presently been making sketches of burgers right after becoming intrigued by the promoting posters of quick foodstuff restaurants. “It wasn’t until finally a yr later when I remembered this exchange. I went back again to my sketchbook and identified this burger.”
Employing acrylics and inspired by the Dutch masters he the moment admired when doing work at the Timken Museum, Windsor established out to paint what he phone calls “modern nevertheless lifes” of hamburgers. The resulting collection of is effective — with names like “Ah Yes Extra Ketchup” and “Where’s the Beef” — will be proven at “Duke Windsor: Nothing’s Impossible,” a solo exhibition at the Oceanside Museum of Art. The burger paintings are plainly a subversive, clever take on a classical fashion. And when Windsor agrees there is a humorous facet to his even now lifes, they however do the job as a intellectual representation of modern meal plans.
“It’s also about our high quality of foodstuff as opposed to what was eaten back then, and the commercialization of that food items as perfectly,” Windsor suggests from his household in Mt. Helix. “It’s not essentially a poke at that industry, but in a way, it is tongue-in-cheek.”
In a lot of approaches, the burger paintings stand for anything of a departure for Windsor. When he continue to uses acrylics and gold leaf gilding in the burger paintings, he’s primarily turn into recognised for his sequence of San Diego cityscapes and alleyways. Continue to, one commonality within just his 20-plus 12 months career is his exploration of the notion of comfort. Though not overt, Windsor appears to be to be captivated to the concept of solace, whether it is the comforts of home or, in the situation of his burgers, the satiation one particular might sense even though making the most of a favorite meals.
“It is about ease and comfort,” Windsor claims. “It is about one thing that is intrinsic to our preferences and beliefs.”
“They all offer with a feeling of spot, of belonging, need and eyesight,” Windsor continues, referring to the collective physique of paintings he’s produced over the years. “They deal in the concept that the only way you can have a eyesight of something that you get pleasure from is if it’s an icon.”
In addition to venturing in nonetheless existence paintings, Windsor also transformed his technique for the new collection. He applied larger sized brushwork to make much more visceral textures for the burgers. Whereas in the earlier, he’d try to include summary techniques into his very own fashion of realism, for the burger series, his purposes ended up extra deliberate and immediate. A person detail he didn’t change, nonetheless, is his use of gold leaf gilding to make the burgers pop off the canvas.
“I generally think of that movie with Michael Douglas (“Falling Down”) where by he gets his burger and gets genuinely upset about how it appears to be like,” claims Windsor. “It’s a poke at that. An artist’s task is to make a dialogue and truly get in-depth of the meaning guiding something. The principle of what we see, and what we truly get.”
The solo present at OMA also marks the initially time Windsor has been exhibited at one of San Diego’s more substantial cultural establishments. He’s experienced solo demonstrates at galleries and exhibited in numerous team reveals about the decades, but he says it feels “great” to be identified for his commitment. A previous Maritime who moved to San Diego in 1979, he credits his military working experience as providing him the travel and commitment to stick with his art.
“You just have to go out there and operate your butt off to get known, and I believe that is what I’ve been carrying out more than the a long time,” claims Windsor, who purchased his Mt. Helix residence in the ’90s and has utilized his garage as his studio ever given that. “It’s about undertaking the operate. Demonstrating up. I consider San Diego has actually molded me into being tenacious about undertaking my get the job done no matter of what happens.”
More than the many years, he’s labored in abstracts, figurative items, and, most notably, his cityscapes and alleyway collection of operates. He’s by no means ceased to be prolific, continually generating new is effective and experimenting with new varieties and procedures. In addition to “Nothing’s Unattainable,” he has a solo demonstrate prepared for Sparks Gallery in October 2022, in which he ideas to revisit his far more figurative “Men at Work” collection, which focuses on Caltrans staff. He also desires to check out “urban continue to lifes,” as perfectly as a sequence checking out his rodeo days.
For now, even so, he’s just enthusiastic about tapping into patrons’ feeling of nostalgia and iconography with his 29 still life paintings.
“I just want individuals to occur out, seem at them and assume of them from their individual standpoint. What do they don’t forget the to start with time they had a burger,” asks Windsor right before adding, “just be sure to try to eat right before demonstrating up.”
‘Duke Windsor: Nothing’s Impossible’
When: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays by way of Saturdays. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays. Exhibition runs by means of by way of March 13
The place: Oceanside Museum of Artwork, 704 Pier Look at Way, Oceanside
Price: Absolutely free-$10
Cell phone: (760) 435-3720
On the web: oma-on-line.org