Richard Winkler was born in Norrköping, Sweden, in 1969 and first was taught painting by his grandfather who was an artist. Winkler soon developed his own style that was inspired by forms found in nature and the human body. In 1989 he moved to Stockholm and studied visual art at the Nyckelviken School of Arts. From 1990 to 1993 he continued to study fine art and graphic design at Beckman’s School of Design, where he began to create forms and objects with a strong visual appeal, a feature that has remained a distinctive feature of his works today. During this time, the artist worked for a couple of years as an illustrator for advertising and magazines. In 1992 he opened his own design studio and held several exhibitions of his work in Stockholm.

Searching for something more to his life, in 1997 Winkler decided to move to Ubud in Bali, Indonesia, dedicating himself fully to painting. He continues to live and work in Bali with his Indonesian family. Immersed in the island’s cultural richness and lush landscapes, Winkler found a powerful source of inspiration—shaping a distinctive style that fuses tropical imagery, Balinese culture, and the human form.

Winkler’s works are vibrant celebrations of life and fertility, expressed through imaginative visual narratives that explore the relationship between humanity and nature in its ongoing search for balance and harmony. His figures and objects in the landscape have tubular and inflated forms that have sensual and rather erotic undercurrents. He works with many thin layers of transparent pigments using a glazing technique in order to create deep and intense tropical colours in his paintings that have become his signature style. By continuously playing with the human body amidst tropical settings full of lush vegetation, Winkler develops and elaborates their forms with whimsical and poetic rhythms. This has now led him to transform his painted figures into three-dimensional bronze sculptures.

Since 1992, Winkler has held several solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group shows across Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, Denmark, Sweden, and Monaco. His works gained international recognition, with three paintings ranking among the top ten results for contemporary Western artists in Asian auction houses in 2011. Regularly featured in prestigious art fairs—including Art Singapore, Art Taipei, Art Monaco, and Art Jakarta—Winkler has solidified his place in the global art scene.