Winter Rusiloski was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and grew up painting the rural landscapes of Pennsylvania and the northeastern coast. She earned a BFA in Painting and Related Arts-Dance at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, studying abroad in Cortona, Italy with the University of Georgia. She earned an MFA in Painting with a fellowship award at Texas Christian University, studying abroad at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. Rusiloski joined the Baylor University Department of Art and Art History in the Fall of 2016 where she currently serves as Associate Professor of Art in Painting. Rusiloski works collaboratively with her husband Angel Fernandez in their deadWEST studios in Lakeside, TX and Terlingua Ranch in the Big Bend region of Texas. Site specific works, performances, video, and photography—which often include their six children—are some of the artifacts they create. Rusiloski creates oil on canvas paintings and mixed media works that incorporate photography collaged on canvas, which is integrated with paint. Fernandez creates sculptures, installations, and performances that reflect the harsh environment of Big Bend. They have traversed the northern and southern borders of the United States, experiencing the sublime in landscape, and they pair this experience with the desolation of the Texas desert. Their work has been included in regional, national, and international exhibitions. Rusiloski’s abstracted landscapes have been included in 15 solo exhibitions, more than 30 national and international juried exhibitions, many invitational exhibitions, and received numerous awards. Her work is included in public and private collections nationally and internationally. Exhibition highlights include: The Next Big Thing 2022 at Studio Channel Islands in California, First Place Winner; the Open 30 International Juried Exhibition 2018, Best of Show; Martha Fenstermaker Memorial Visual Arts Gallery in Lardeo, TX; Gesture and Motion, SITE: Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY; The Texas Biennial 2009; three-time Hunting Art Prize Finalist 2012, 2008, 2007; Paint Part 2-Out of Abstraction, at the Arlington Museum of Art; The Texas Oklahoma Art Prize at the Wichita Falls Museum of Art; The 30th, 32nd ,34th and 35th International September Competition at the Alexandria Museum of Art; Gateway to Imagination at the Farmington Museum New Mexico; Contemporary Landscape at the CICA Museum in South Korea; Natural Elements at Blue Line Arts, Roseville, CA: Studio Visit Magazine; the Dallas Art Fair; Houston Art Fair; and Art Santa Fe. "My abstract paintings address memory and the moment. The distant memories of places traversed alone and with my family complement my existence in the present. I began painting with influences from my birthplace in northeastern Pennsylvania. My work transitioned as I moved and traveled throughout the United States and Europe. My identity as a mother and a focus on sublime landscapes, inform the work of the last 16 years. Being a mother of 6 children heightens the power and play through which I see the landscape. It’s vastness and the horizon combine with abstract forms, atmospheric passages, lines, and marks to suggest ideas of obstacles, barriers, and opportunities. Abstraction creates loose narratives from memories and suggestive figurative elements within a romantic landscape. "Many works are made on the remote, untouched landscape of Terlingua Ranch, a frighteningly desolate space. Observations of our land, a forty-acre haven and blank canvas, and my family’s movement on it inform my work. My children spread out and explore, our shadows move across the desert, as we hike and play. My husband, an immigrant from Mexico, and recent attention to border issues further motivates symbolism and study in that unique region of Texas. During the pandemic I focused more tightly on existing in Big Bend, a safe place during our long period of isolation. It became a playground in an unlikely place with water holes, open spaces, and an endless canvas to work upon. Photo documentation of the space is often collaged into the paintings to introduce a varied visual vocabulary which creates another layer of mark making resulting in an ambiguous narrative." — Winter Rusiloski