Christopher Winfield has never known a life without art. He is the beneficiary of an uncommonly creative, mid-century American upbringing. From childhood, artistic activity surrounded him as a daily event. He saw his father, Rodney Winfield, a prestigious stained glass artist, jeweler, painter, and sculptor work through the flow of his ideas, solve creative problems, and bring his artistic concepts into being.
Winfield’s first forays into painting were small figurative pieces in a visionary mode, but he soon understood that this work arose from his father’s influence, and that his own voice lay somewhere very different. At Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he studied art and earned his degree, Winfield became intrigued with exploring surface over content. He found that his loosely painted backgrounds were of more interest to him than his apparent subjects, and he began to develop these for their own sake.