The drama of the supernatural enlivens Winter’s paintings across all planes; from the damp forest floor, to the pose of a shadowed figure, to a hazy grey horizon. He takes obvious inspiration from Caravaggio’s hair- raising chiaroscuro and mannerist poses, as seen in paintings like Gulp (2006) and Wild Wood (2023), which reinterpret some of the Baroque master’s most renowned paintings including David with the head of Goliath (1610) and St John the Baptist at the Well (1608). Winter also reflects on being inspired by the work of other classical Italian masters including Botticelli’s line drawings depicting Dante’s Inferno that were commissioned by the Medici family. Conversely, Winter also conjures scenes that are subtler and more elusive in references and subject matter like The Voyeur (2006) and Space Shifter (2011). These are what we might call particularly ‘open-ended’ images that challenge a viewer who tries to make ‘narrative’ sense of what they are seeing. They present the supernatural as a parallel reality and even an altered state of consciousness, a universe full of questions for which the artist gives no definitive answers.