The subjects of Paul Winstanley’s paintings are what he calls “semi-public spaces”—the likes of waiting rooms, lobbies, hospitals, and airports. “Often aspiring to look like private spaces [these spaces] never quite make it, so they have something of an ill-defined quality about them,” he explains. Each of these types of spaces has been the subject of an extensive series; among his most famous are the “Veil” paintings, an ongoing collection Winstanley begun in 1999 depicting curtained windows. Winstanley bases his compositions on photographs of uninhabited interiors and landscapes in a process he likens to Johannes Vermeer’s use of the camera obscura as a painting aid; his realist style has a distinctive out-of-focus quality. The artist cites Northen European painters Vermeer, Casper David Friedrich, and Vilhelm Hammershoi as strong influences.