Ezshwan Kraus Winding is an American artist whose career has included painting, sculpture, printmaking, mixed media, and encaustic work. Her art has been exhibited in the United States, Mexico, and elsewhere, while her teaching has included yoga and workshops in encaustic painting and drawing.
Background
Ezshwan Kraus Winding was born on August 13, 1934, in North Chicago, Illinois, to Joseph Kraus and Hermina Lang Kraus. She has described drawing, painting, and storytelling as important interests from childhood, and later recalled that she began thinking seriously about becoming an artist at a young age.
Her adult life included extensive travel with her husband, jazz trombonist Kai Winding. Their life together brought her into contact with concert venues, recording studios, jazz festivals, and international travel, including years in Europe and Spain. She later established a long-term artistic base in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
Education
Winding studied painting and advertising design at the University of Illinois and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree there in 1956. The university's art and design programs formed part of the larger public-university tradition of professional education in the United States during the postwar period.
She continued her artistic education at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she studied sculpture, and at Barat College, where her work included painting and art history. She also studied printmaking at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her training encompassed painting, illustration, sculpture, printmaking, and art history, providing a broad technical foundation for her later work across several media.
Career
Winding has worked professionally as an artist for more than six decades. Her practice has included oil and acrylic painting, sculpture, printmaking, figurative art, abstract art, and mixed media. She later concentrated increasingly on encaustic painting, using layers of beeswax, resin, pigments, drawing, scraping, and heat fusion to create textured surfaces and luminous compositions.
Her exhibitions have included galleries and art institutions in Arizona, California, Illinois, Oregon, Mexico, and other locations. From 1991 to 1997, she was president of Artisimo Art Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, which also presented her work during the 1990s and early 2000s. Her work has been exhibited in San Miguel de Allende and other Mexican locations, and has entered private, corporate, university, and museum collections.
Winding has also taught artistic techniques, including encaustic painting, drawing, portraiture, and mixed-media methods. She produced online instructional material on drawing and painting faces and has taught workshops in San Miguel de Allende. Earlier in her career, she worked as a yoga teacher in New York City, Chicago, and Spain from 1971 to 1987.
Achievements
Developed a sustained career in painting, sculpture, printmaking, mixed media, and encaustic art spanning more than six decades.
Established a recognized body of encaustic work based on layered beeswax, resin, pigments, drawing, scraping, and heat-fused surfaces.
Exhibited artwork in galleries and art institutions in the United States and Mexico, with works entering private, corporate, university, and museum collections.
Taught encaustic painting, drawing, portraiture, and mixed-media techniques through workshops and online instructional programs.
(An online instructional course created and presented by W...)
2014
Views
Winding describes art as a form of intuitive and spiritual expression. She connects harmony, color, form, rhythm, and energy with the possibility of emotional communication between the artist and the viewer.
Her encaustic process emphasizes experimentation and partial surrender of control. She compares the layering, scraping, fusing, and rebuilding of wax surfaces to the analysis of dreams, and regards improvisation as a way for a work to develop beyond predictable or purely conscious design.
Winding has also written about meditation, yoga, introspection, and the continuing development of creative identity. Her artistic philosophy treats lifelong learning and artistic practice as continuing processes rather than achievements completed at a fixed stage.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Cynthia Hamilton's review of Winding's encaustic work described its movement, color, balance, tactile surface, and layered visual effects as inviting sustained engagement with the paintings.
Interests
Yoga, meditation, encaustic techniques, drawing, painting, and teaching art.
Music & Bands
Jazz has been an important part of Winding's personal and family environment through her marriage to Kai Winding and her years of travel with him.
Connections
Winding was married to Kai C. Winding, a Danish-American jazz trombonist who died on May 6, 1983. They traveled together during his performance career, including journeys to concerts, recording studios, jazz festivals, and jazz clubs.
They had three children: Valarie Winding, Renee Winding, and Cynthia Hamilton Winding.
Father:
Joseph Kraus
Mother:
Hermina Lang Kraus
child:
Valarie Winding
child:
Renee Winding
child:
Cynthia Hamilton Winding
Reviewed Winding's encaustic work in Encaustic Arts Magazine.
Wife:
Kai C. Winding
Jazz trombonist who traveled internationally with Winding during his performance career.
References
Ezshwan Winding official website
Winding's personal account of her artistic practice, encaustic work, travel with Kai Winding, and approach to art.
Saatchi Art: Ezshwan Winding
Artist profile documenting Winding's education, exhibitions, encaustic technique, and artworks.
TurningArt: Ezshwan Winding
Profile describing Winding as a visual artist, her work across multiple media, encaustic practice, exhibitions, and education.
Featured Artist Ezshwan Winding
Feature discussing Winding's abstract encaustic paintings, artistic development, and teaching of encaustic techniques.
