Artist: Gail Winbury

Silence Breaking is a hidden gem of a show featuring abstract paintings by Gail Winbury at the Carl and Helen Burger Gallery on Kean University’s idyllic, park-like campus in Union, NJ. A New Jersey native, Gail Winbury’s oil paintings depict interpretations of various poems and personal stories that manifest into abstractions with colliding shapes and colors. Her use of gestural abstraction and expressionist lines reflect her interest in the elicitation of psychological responses via painting. Most of the work in the gallery is in large square format, dominated by celadon or mint blue green – a color frequently ranked among the calmest colors. The Field of Green series, which is most of the show, is a departure for the artist, whose previous series had much more aggressive lines and brighter shapes, which more comfortably rested into a traditional rectangular surface dimension. The compositional choices in this body of work are deliberate and minimal, reflecting a more meditative feel full of cooler tones and calmer transitions.