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Archive for the ‘Painting’ Category

Song of Joy

Posted in Event, Favorite Things, Music, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on June 2, 2021| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Song of Joy 2021

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

― Rabindranath Tagore

Titled Song of Joy, this 18″ by 24″ painting on masonite panel is included in my annual solo exhibit Between Here and There, opening Friday, June 4, at the Principle Gallery.

This piece really struck me in a powerful way while it was in the studio. There is something in the brightness and clarity of the colors that just feels joyful to me. And the orange sun rising adds a sense of forward-looking hope to this joy. Even the shapes of the rich green forms in the foreground had a happy, joyful feeling.

It might be one of the more optimistic paintings I have done in some time. There is a positivity that I think reflects the thought above from the great Nobel Prize winning poet/writer Rabindranath Tagore. There is real joy to be found in the recognition that we are all filled from the same stream of life, that the lifeforce of all living things and the atoms of which we are all comprised are from that stream.

This sense of unity, this joyfulness in simply being, also makes the natural sorrows of this world, the inescapable realities of our lifetimes, somewhat easier to absorb. It is, after all, simply part of the stream’s flow. And for all of the joy and brightness of this painting, it has an underlying darkness showing through.

By its very nature, it is brightness built on darkness. It’s something I always want and seek in my work, this sense of visible darkness which contrasts and heightens the light.

Joy in life despite the its hardships.

And in this painting, that is the source of the Red Tree’s Song of Joy.

Here’s a song that sort of expresses this type of joy. It’s Feelin’ Good Again from Robert Earl Keen. It’s a favorite song that I’ve played it here before. It always reminds me of my dad and his bar buddies, many who he had known most of his life. I remember stopping at the bar with him on a number of times on Saturday mornings, a quick pitstop on the way to the horse track, and how all these guys would be so happy in seeing one another, laughing and shouting. It might have been as close to real joy as I ever saw in my dad. This song always feels like it’s a song of joy he would understand.

9921063 Song of Joy Catalog page

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In Rhapsody

Posted in Event, Favorite Things, Influences, Music, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, Television, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 1, 2021| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- In Rhapsody 2021

My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.

― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

The idea of a union between music and painting has long been a theme in my work. I think my new solo show, Between Here and There, at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria probably explores that idea more than most of my prior shows.

The painting above might be the best example of this. It is titled In Rhapsody and is 24″ by 30″ on canvas. I see all sorts of musical equivalencies or analogies in it. I see the Red Tree here as a conductor of sorts, standing in a sort of spotlight of brightness amidst an orchestra composed of the landscape and the skies and the mountains as he pushes them to a loud crescendo. Something very Beethoven-like or Wagnerian to that, probably due to the influence of Bugs Bunny cartoons in my childhood. I most likely know more about Warner Brothers’ cartoons than I do about classical music but that doesn’t dampen my appreciation for either.

Or I see whole painting as a musical score, the layers of the landscape moving back into the picture plane as movements in a musical piece, each with their own emotional content and inflection that leads to the next, with which it blends and meshes into a building harmony. It builds more and more as the layers move deeper culminating in the movement from land and water up into the red-violet of the sky. The sky here feels like the crescendo here for me.

Everything builds to the drama contained in the color and clouds of that sky.

For me, it has an ethereal, timeless quality that reminds me of a fine piece of music, one that moves people in any time in which it is played. Music and art are emotion-based and while everything in this world is forever changing and the circumstances might be completely different for generations of listeners or viewers, our emotional responses remain very much the same. We coo in love and rage in hate, we laugh in joy, we cry in despair, and so on.

Our emotions are fields of constancy and music and art work their magic in those fields. I hope this piece does that, as well. Of course, this is simply how I personally see and feel the piece and that doesn’t amount to much more than small hill of beans when you get right down to it. How this painting or any other piece of mine works it way into the future is well beyond my control. It has to prove itself.

Below, is an example of a piece of music that I think fits well with In Rhapsody. It is a section from Beethoven‘s famous 5th Symphony, one that builds to crescendo beautifully. The video is a composed of a graphical score with multiple colors and forms that is fascinating to watch as it scrolls along with the music. I thought it was also interesting how the colors of its beginning screen match so well with the painting as you can see in the image below the video.

My annual solo show, Between Here and There, opens this Friday, June 4, at the Principle Gallery at their King Street location in Alexandria, VA. Unfortunately, I will not be in attendance this year. We are hoping for some sort of event, a gallery talk, later in the year as circumstances allow. You can see the show catalog here. Thank you!

GC Myers- In Rhapsody Principle Gallery 2021 Catalog page

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Invocation in Blue

Posted in Event, Favorite Things, Music, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 27, 2021| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Invocation in Blue sm

A certain blue enters your soul. A certain red has an effect on your blood-pressure.

– Henri Matisse

Matisse certainly had it right.

For me, blue is the color of the soul and spirit and red the corporeal, the blood and body. Blue is the ethereal. Red is the carnal. I think that is why both colors play such a large part in my work. Actually, they play large parts in the work of most artists. They are two of the three primary colors for a good reason.

But in my work they often symbolize those two parts in us as individual humans– the body and the spirit, the carnal and the ethereal. Having the two come to terms within the picture and within myself is often part of my aim, something I usually don’t recognize until I am examining the painting after completion.

I think this new painting, a 16″ by 20″ canvas that is part of my new show at the Principle Gallery which opens next Friday, June 4. This piece is titled Invocation in Blue. I see it as dealing with that space between the spirit and the physical in each of us, about how we aspire to our higher aspects but are bound by our earthly desires.

Head in the stars, feet in the mud, figuratively speaking.

And that is sort of what I see here. The Red Tree aspires to the ethereal calm found in the endless blue of the night sky and the peaceful presence of the moon. But it is still rooted in the earth, still comforted and sustained by its earthly needs and desires. The patchwork of reds and purples seem almost like a quilt or comforter that mainly warms and protects but also restrains.

But even so, both of the worlds attached to each color have an appeal of their own. And in this piece, they dwell side by side, as they often do within some of us. It is a painting that has an acceptance of its place in the universe, that recognizes that we can and do exist in both the ethereal and the corporeal worlds. It is a painting of the peaceful balance that can exist between the two.

But, as always, that’s just my opinion. You might see it as something altogether different. And to that, I say, Good for you. That’s just as it should be.

Okay, here’s some music to accompany the painting. It’s also a great song to sip coffee by. It’s the great jazz piece Blue in Green. It is most often associated with Miles Davis. He is credited with writing it and his version is iconic. Brilliant. But I also like the version below from pianist Bill Evans who played on the Davis recording and was later revealed to be the true composer of the tune though he never received credit on the label or in royalties. It’s just a beautiful piece and I like to think it sums up the balance between the two worlds I discussed above.

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Full Moon Fever

Posted in At the Movies, Event, Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 26, 2021| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Full Moon Fever smHere is another new piece from my solo show at the Principle Gallery that opens next week, on June 4th. This is another of the interior scenes showing a room in the aftermath of some sort of to-do.

Myself, I don’t know exactly what took place and can only imagine.

I think that’s the point of these paintings, to give an endpoint where the viewer has to use their own imagination as to what has occurred. A final paragraph for a short story that gives you the results but not how it got to this point. It can be as vibrant and wild as your imagination allows.

This painting, a 10″ by 20″ canvas, is titled Full Moon Fever. My own story for what has happened is that this is a cabin where Larry Talbot tried to hide from the moon, to no avail. Larry Talbot was the name of Lon Chaney’s character in the original 1941 werewolf movie, The Wolf Man.

Now, that’s my take. Your own story may not line up with this at all and that’s means you’re using your imagination. That is usually a good thing so long as you realize it’s your imagination and not reality. Wild imaginings that folks perceive as reality are not a good thing as we have all seen in way too many instances in recent times.

I borrowed the title of this painting from a Tom Petty album that bore the same name, Full Moon Fever. Here’s Free Fallin’ from that album to honor the memory of Larry Talbot’s howling freefall that came under every full moon.

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Cezanne on Feeling

Posted in Painting, Quote, Video, tagged , , , , on May 21, 2021| 2 Comments »

Cezanne- The Kitchen Table 1888-1890

Paul Cézanne– The Kitchen Table, 1888-1890

An art which isn’t based on feeling isn’t an art at all… feeling is the principle, the beginning and the end; craft, objective, technique – all these are in the middle.

-Paul Cézanne

Since I am a little short on time this morning as I am in the final days of wrapping up my approaching Principle Gallery show before delivery later this weekend, I thought I’d share a thought from Paul Cézanne that pretty much sums up my view on art, that feeling and emotion is the primary driver behind all art.

Here’s a short video of some of of Cezanne’s better known works for you to examine for their levels of feeling.

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Symphony of Silence

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Painting, Poetry, tagged , , , , , , , on May 19, 2021| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Symphony of Silence 2021

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.

― Rumi, 13th century Persian poet

The new painting at the top, titled Symphony of Silence, is an 18″ by 36″ canvas. This weekend, it is headed down to the Principle Gallery as part of my solo show, Between Here and There, which opens June 4th.

I have written in the past about what I see as the connection between painting and music, how I see some of my pieces as simple songs and others as more intricate compositions. Perhaps symphonies or concertos.

This, in my eyes, is one that seems simple at a first glance. It is sparse and without great details. But the more I look at it, the more I see in it. How each element and color plays off the next and how they are fortified by each. It feels like there are rhythms and melodies running through it, from side to side as the terrain flows and up and down with rise of the moon.  There is inward and outward movement with the light of the stars and the undulation of the trail. The blocks that make up the night sky seem to swirl and rotate in all directions. The far mountains appear almost as sound waves. 

There is seemingly constant movement throughout the landscape and the skyscape. Almost a cacophony.

Almost.

It is silence.

Somehow the movements, the rhythms, and contrasts all run together at some point.

Harmony. Made up of the stars in motion countless lightyears away and the ancient wisdom contained in the stillness of the land and water. Always there but in silence. 

It is a simple piece but one that constantly shares something more than it lets on with a mere glance.

Here’s a piece of music to accompany it, a longtime favorite of mine and one that has played a large part in how I came to view my own work. It’s from composer Arvo Pärt and his composition Tabula Rasa. This is the second movement, fittingly titled Silentium. It feels right with this painting.

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Una Semper

Posted in Event, Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on May 16, 2021| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- Una Semper 2021

The title of this new 20″ by 30″ painting is Una Semper which translates from the Latin as Always One. It’s part of the group that will soon be heading down to the Principle Gallery for my annual solo show there. This year’s show is called Between Here and There and opens June 4.

This would be what I would call one of my Baucis and Philemon pieces based on the Greek myth that I have documented here on a number of occasions. I have done a number of iterations on this theme over the past decade or so and they remain among my favorite pieces to paint. There something in the dynamic of the two trees intertwining and pushing upward that stirs a feeling within me.

For some reason, the pair tends to bring most any composition to a satisfying fulfillment. These pieces always feel complete and self-contained. And I like that.

This piece has these elements and has a brightness and pop that is really appealing to my own sensibilities. It just seems alive which is a big deal for me.

I thought I’d pair this new piece with this week’s Sunday Morning musical selection. which is from the 2005 album, Devils & Dust from Bruce Springsteen. It was his third acoustic album, and like the other two, Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad, remains a favorite of mine with memorable songs throughout, including the title track.  This song is titled All I’m Thinkin’ About and features a falsetto over a driving melody. I am always surprised at how effective his falsetto is in his songs. This is one of those songs that always grabs my attention when it comes on while I am working.

Okay, got to get going because there is still lots to be done as I prep for this show. No rest for the wicked as they like to say. I would like to believe it’s the other way around — no rest for the righteous— but that might just be quibbling.

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Harmonia Aeternam

Posted in Event, Literature/ Books, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on May 10, 2021| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Harmonia Aeternam

There are seconds, they come only five or six at a time, and you suddenly feel the presence of eternal harmony, fully achieved. It is nothing earthly; not that it’s heavenly, but man cannot endure it in his earthly state. One must change physically or die. The feeling is clear and indisputable. As if you suddenly sense the whole of nature and suddenly say: yes, this is true. God, when he was creating the world, said at the end of each day of creation: ‘Yes, this is true, this is good.’ This . . . this is not tenderheartedness, but simply joy. You don’t forgive anything, because there is no longer anything to forgive. You don’t really love — oh, what is here is higher than love! What’s most frightening is that it’s so terribly clear, and there’s such joy. If it were longer than five seconds — the soul couldn’t endure it and would vanish. In those five seconds I live my life through, and for them I would give my whole life, because it’s worth it. To endure ten seconds one would have to change physically . . . .

― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

I think I understand what Dostoyevsky was describing in the words above. I imagine –well, hope– that most of you have experienced those fleeting seconds where the harmony of everything suddenly becomes evident to you.

All the things that make up the world, the universe, all the planes of existence, and yourself in that rare moment seem to be just where they should be in relation to all other things. It is as though everything is comprised of floating, constantly shifting plates that periodically find themselves in a position where the perfection of eternity is achieved and revealed to the watchful few.

For a few glorious seconds.

Then the plates resume their shifting and harmony seems, at best, just out of reach. Or, in the case of the other extreme, nowhere to be found as the plates shift to a point of chaos and dangerous imbalance.

Maybe that rare moment of eternal harmony –as I know it– is what I am seeing in this new painting that is headed to the Principle Gallery for my annual solo show, Between Here and There, which opens June 4. It has a feeling of great harmony for me, of things being in alignment, in place. And of the Red Tree as a central figure being aware of the unity of time and place in which it finds itself.

I believe I have experienced episodes of those four or five seconds of clarity and I see it in this piece. I am calling this new 24″ by 36″ painting Harmonia Aeternam. I chose the Latin translation for Eternal Harmony because I felt this piece deserved a weightier title.

It’s strong enough to handle it.

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Pillars and Wisdom: Wait and Hope

Posted in Advice, Event, Literature/ Books, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on May 6, 2021| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- Pillars of Wisdom- Wait and Hope sm

“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life.
” Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, ‘Wait and Hope.”

― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

The painting above is another that is included in my show, Between Here and There, that opens June 4 at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA. It is 12″ by 16″ and is also painted on an aluminum panel.

It is titled Pillars of Wisdom: Wait and Hope. This was inspired, in part, by the excerpt above from the classic The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. As I was painting it, I began call this piece Pillars of Wisdom but after it was completed I came across this bit from Dumas. The idea of seeing these being trees named Hope and Wait and that they represent the totality of human wisdom seemed perfect.

So many of us live with a certainty and assurance that is beyond me. We have yet to learn all there is to know, all the answers to the infinite number of questions that hover over us like so many stars in the night sky. Perhaps one day we will fully be bathed in the light that is all wisdom, but until then all we have are those two words: Wait and Hope.

Hope waits for the light to come and Wait hopes for it.

Wait and Hope. What more do you need to know?

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Tranquilium

Posted in Event, In the Studio, Literature/ Books, Painting, Process, Quote, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 5, 2021| 2 Comments »

Fanny spoke her feelings. “Here’s harmony!” said she; “here’s repose! Here’s what may leave all painting and all music behind, and what may tranquillise every care, and lift the heart to rapture! When I look out on such a night as this, I feel as if there could be neither wickedness nor sorrow in the world; and there certainly would be less of both if the sublimity of Nature were more attended to, and people were carried more out of themselves by contemplating such a scene.

― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

GC Myers- Tranquilium smThis is a new painting that is included in my new solo show, Between Here and There, which opens June 4 at the Principle Gallery. It is titled Tranquilium and is 10″ by 20″ painted on an aluminum panel.

I have recently started painting on aluminum composite panels which are two layers of aluminum sandwiched over a polyethylene core. They are rigid, acid-free and extremely durable which means that a painting done on one of these panels should be long-lasting.

The durability and  stability of my work is something I have thought about since my earliest days as an artist. While I have no control over how my work moves into the future after it leaves my hands, I can at least give it a chance to survive while maintaining the look and integrity of the original painting.

I don’t know if my work will live on but if so, I want it to look as good as possible. I believe work painted on these panels have the best chance at doing just that.

Plus, I like painting on them, Every surface– canvas, wood panel, or paper– has its own feel under the brush. A stretched canvas has an appeal for me in that there is often a drum-like feel and cadence as the brush bounces off the taut surface. It adds to the meditative quality of the process. Paper has a softness that comes through even when it is covered with multiple layers of gesso.

Much like wood or masonite panels but far more stable and unaffected by moisture, the aluminum panels have a unmoving solidity that lets me know how my brush will react as it meets the surface. That helps for my process. I know what is going to happen at that moment. And that’s a good thing.

This piece, Tranquilium, has satisfied something within me. It has a stillness and placidity that feels timeless so it’s natural that I would like to think that it will live a longer life than my own. Hopefully, it has something in it, perhaps that which Jane Austen’s Fanny described above, that will speak to someone in the future as it does to me in the present moment. Lifting the panel with this painting, feeling its weight and solidity and the way the image comes off the surface, it certainly seems like it might.

I will never know but at least I am giving it a chance.

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