ROBERT WINKLER

Since 1990 Robert Winkler has been manipulating volume, mass, and balance to create a sense of movement. Above all, it is his ability to find infinite variation within a limited number of shapes that sets his work apart. Without so much as a single curved cut of wood or metal, he achieves serpentine animated forms through the use of incremental gradations. It is a discipline that offers no hiding-place for error, demanding meticulous workmanship.

Robert has been pursuing art for most of his life, “I got a late start,” he jokes, pointing to a surprisingly convincing sculpture of a bear he made in kindergarten at the age of five. By the time he was seven he was attending children’s art classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art. He went on to study ceramics, painting, and sculpture at schools in Cleveland, Boston, and New York, and through his travels around the world, with working vacations in France, Italy, Hungary, and Spain.

An Asheville, North Carolina resident since 2003, Robert was the founder of River Sculpture, an annual contemporary outdoor sculpture showcase for regional sculptors – a show that many visitors described as a “sculpture in itself.” -RW

People often ask Robert Winkler what inspired one or another of his sculptures. The more relevant question for him is “What do my abstract forms inspire in the viewer?”

His works begin as pure ideas relating to form, volume, and balance – that allow the imagination to soar unimpeded. In this light it is not surprising when people see them as recognizable forms, but for the artist that is only a happy coincidence.