bio

Beth Winter’s practice is prolific and multi-faceted—spanning comics and zines, collage, video, music, textiles, and crafts–-and infused with her playful worldview and cryptic, deadpan sense-of-humor.  She is an avowed fan of silent comedy, particularly the work Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, and their particular blend of danger and sweetness, of chaos and understatement, are clear influences on her elusive and hilarious sensibility.   In her “picture books”, fantastically named characters like President Jimmy McWarmblood and Mr. YumYum are plopped into narratives where nothing much happens.  Her songs—terrifying industrial dirges each accompanied by the anxiously shrieked refrain “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god I’m so comfortable and warm!”---exhibit the same interest in enacting bizarre and singular tensions.  Her minimalist collages, frequently consisting of a simple and oblique visual pun or a singularly bizarre yet deliberate image surrounded by a crayon frame, are often surprisingly interesting for the sense of intentionality behind their utter inexplicability.  This space, where Andy Kaufman meets arts and crafts, is where the bulk of her work lives.  Her quiet pieces often land like jokes without punchlines, leaving her audience feeling awkward and charmed, wondering where they stand in relation to her inscrutable bits.

Beth is also a skilled and industrious craftsperson, and has slowly built up her own overflowing corner of our studio gift shop which she has named “The Comfortable and Warm Land Store”.  In stark contrast to her other work, the store appears to be a beacon of pragmatism and sincerity.  She sells greeting cards, decorative handicrafts, knitted hats, bookmarks, and popsicle stick picture frames that she adorns with her own handmade price tags.  Beth’s craft store was once a source of minor consternation for the high-minded art lovers on Elbow Room’s staff, until we reviewed our holiday sales records and saw, once again, that the joke was on us.