Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Recent Paintings’ Category

Cleansed

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , on May 25, 2016| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Cleansed smThis is another piece from my upcoming June show at the Principle Gallery.  It is titled Cleansed and is 18″ by 18″ on canvas.  The final look of this painting really pleases me with its clarity and pop.  It really makes the eye jump to it in the studio.

During the past few days as I’ve been doing final preparations for the show, I have found myself seeking this piece out just to look at it for a few stolen moments.  There’s something very soothing in a placid kind of way for me in this painting, despite the brightness of the color that seems to almost be shouting from the canvas.  Maybe it’s shouting, “Relax!”

Cleansed Layout and Underpainting 2016This was an interesting piece.  I initially laid out the composition in red oxide and began to lay color into the rays in the sky.  At that point it felt like the overall color of it was going to go into the blues. A nocturnal scene perhaps.  But that didn’t quite ring true for me so I didn’t go forward with it.  So for the last couple of months this piece has been sitting in the state shown here at the left, behind me as I work at the easel.  Whenever I would turn around, it was there staring me in the face.

Finally, in the last week, I decided that it had to be done.  It still felt like a night scene but I decided to go against that intuition.  I had been working on a couple of pieces with brighter colors in the days before this and decided to continue in that vein here.  At first, I regretted it but it quickly took on the glow that I see in it.

I’m glad I went this way even though I think the other way would have brought a really strong image.  I think I needed it this way more than the other way.

And sometimes that’s what painting does for me– it gives me what I need at certain times.

_________________________________

REMINDER:  ENGAGE NEPAL AND WIN!

Just a reminder that you can help the Soarway Foundation in its efforts to help the people of Nepal in their struggle to recover form last year’s earthquakes.  Your donation of $25 and above gives you an entry into a drawing for  my painting, Enraptured, a 30″ by 40″ canvas valued at $5000, as well as a signed commemorative poster from the Soarway Foundation.

In relative terms, your odds are pretty good so reach out  and give a helping hand and maybe you can win this painting.

This event ends in less than two weeks, on June 6, 2016.  So please act now.  If you can’t, please share this or tell a friend or two–every little bit helps.

You can go to the contest site by clicking here or clicking on the painting or poster below:

Soarway Poster -Engage Nepal GC Myers- Enraptured sm a

Read Full Post »

The Bridging

Posted in Advice, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on May 19, 2016| 3 Comments »

GC Myers- The Bridging

We want to be sure that it has that drama to it, that vividness to it, that focus, that cleanliness to it that is going to say something to you.

—Thomas Keller

***************

The words above from chef Thomas Keller, owner of the fabled French Laundry restaurant  in Napa Valley, were in reference to food but I couldn’t help thinking that it was good advice for artists as well.

As an artist, you want your work to have a sense of drama that compels the viewer (or listener or reader or whoever it is that is taking in your work) to pause and ponder the work.  This sense of drama tells the viewer that there is something beyond the surface if they only take the time to fully appreciate it.

The vividness is in the uniqueness of it, how quickly it reaches out with its essence and reaches its intended audience.  I think of this as the work being a sort of beacon that is calling out.  Sometime, I will go in a gallery or museum and there are things on the wall that just call out to me from a great distance away.  It can be in the color or contrast or composition– something that just grabs my eye.

Focus is in the sense that all of the elements in the work come together in a harmony that pushes the central theme through.  I think there is a lot of work that is quite well done but never fully comes together in a single message that comes through to the audience.  I’m sure you’ve experienced work that you know is well done but just doesn’t seem to have much to say to you.  It kind of leaves you cold.  Focus, I believe, brings the work to life.

And there’s cleanliness.  I don’t think Keller was speaking about the cleanliness of a sanitized kitchen in his quote.  I think he was referring to the execution of the work– in his case food– so that all the elements of it sparkle and there is no distraction from what it is meant to be.  There are no unnecessary flavors or embellishments.  All excess has been pared away and there is a lightness and brightness to it.

Taken all together these qualities make for a delicious dish.  But it doesn’t happen with every effort.  There are days when finding one of these is difficult.  Then there are days when they just emerge, seemingly without effort.

The example I’m putting forward that I think fulfills Keller’s requirements — you might not agree– is the painting at the top, a 10″ by 30″ canvas called The Bridging that is part of my show at the Principle Gallery, opening in a couple of weeks on June 3.

It was the first piece I looked at after reading Keller’s words and it just seemed to have that beacon effect on me.  It was vivid and focused in it’s communication and there was a sense of drama to it.  Plus, there was a sharpness in its look and finish that just made it very appetizing.  ‘

If this were food, I would gladly eat it.

As I said, you might disagree.  Our tastes in food and art may differ.

And that is just as it should be…

Read Full Post »

In the Inner Place

Posted in Influences, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 17, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- In the Inner PlaceShakespeare said that art is a mirror held up to nature. And that’s what it is. The nature is your nature, and all of these wonderful poetic images of mythology are referring to something in you. When your mind is simply trapped by the image out there so that you never make the reference to yourself, you have misread the image.
—Joseph Campbell (with Bill Moyers), The Power of Myth

*****************************

I think that the words above that Joseph Campbell spoke during his conversation with Bill Moyers for  The Power of Myth speak beautifully for both mythology and art, at least in my view.  I believe that we truly connect with myth and art when we see it as personal to ourselves, as being somehow symbolic of our own experience and being.  Our emotions and reactions.

Of course, many myths and much in art may not speak to us on this personal level.  I certainly don’t expect my work to speak to everyone no matter how much I may wish that it could.  It simply can’t.  My work is a reflection of my journey, my limited knowledge and my flawed self.  Yours is completely different.  But occasionally, there is a moment when you will see something of yourself in my representation of my inner world and that to me is magical.

This new painting, an 8″ by 24″ canvas, is what I see as being a very personal piece that might well reflect for others.  I call it In the Inner Place and it is included in my upcoming show, Part of the Pattern, at the Principle Gallery which opens June 3.  Without being specific, I see many things in this painting that I think speak strongly to how I want to see my world and my place in it.

An inner perception.

You might simply see it as a pleasant piece.

Or not.

Or you may see it as something reflective of your own inner world, something that speaks to who you are.  I can’t say.  We can’t control what anyone sees in a mirror.

Read Full Post »

Ascending Bird

Posted in History, Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 15, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Ascending BirdI’ve been looking for a title for this new painting, an 18″ by 18″ canvas, for a week or so now.  A lot of things come to mind and I thought I had it for a while.  Then I was listening to some music and one of the songs just hit me.

It was Ascending Bird, a traditional Persian folk melody, played by the Silk Road Ensemble which is a large and loosely knit group ofmusicians, including the great Yo-Yo Ma, who hail from along that fabled route and play many of the traditional instruments. The Silk Road was the network of  ancient routes that traders used in linking the East and West over the centuries, from China through the Middle East to the Mediterranean. Both goods and ideas moved along the Silk Road.

This song is the Persian version of the Phoenix myth, of a bird who flies higher and higher toward the sun until it is engulfed in flames.  It then rises from the ashes as a new creature.

And that’s kind of how I see this painting.  The paths moving from dark to light signify a transformative journey and the Red Tree appears as a Phoenix-like figure emerging from a hillock bursting from a treed hillside.  The Red Tree almost seems to ready to take flight.  I see it as a moment of realization and redefinition.

Here is the Silk Road Ensemble with Y0-Yo Ma performing Ascending Bird.  The version here is a shorter one but has the dynamic punch that struck me.  You can hear a longer version here. Give a listen and have a great Sunday.

Read Full Post »

Highest Ground

Posted in Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on May 12, 2016| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Highest GroundI’m so glad that he let me try it again
‘Cause my last time on earth I lived a whole world of sin
I’m so glad that I know more than I knew then
Gonna keep on tryin’
Till I reach my highest ground

— Stevie Wonder, Higher Ground

********************

Another new painting headed for my show, Part of the Pattern, which opens June 3 at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.  This piece is 8″ by 14″ on paper and is titled Highest Ground, borrowed from the chorus of the great Stevie Wonder song.

This is an easy piece to absorb at first take with its mix of deep warm and cool colors and simplified composition.  But despite that, there’s a lot of going on in this piece. It both feels soothing as though it represents a sort of safe haven but it raises questions.  If this is a safe haven, what is it safe from? Is this an end of the world scenario?  There’s a boat but nobody seems to be present– where are they?

And the ladder is a new element here.  I see it as a symbol of a continual upward climb toward some sort of final personal fulfillment.  A spiritual endpoint.  As the song says– gonna keep on tryin’/ Till I reach my highest ground.

 Here’s Stevie Wonder’s song to help me along as I continue to look at this piece for a while.

Read Full Post »

Prismatic Moment

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on May 10, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Prismatic Moment smThe soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.

–Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

*******************

When I was in the early stages of this piece, I wasn’t quite sure what I thought of it.  It just seemed too much.  Too much color.  Too much vibrancy.

But as I tweaked here and there, deepening some colors and inserting lighter segments, it seemed to coalesce into something that needed that vibrancy in order to express whatever it held within.  As the final marks were made and it was finished, that initial uncertainty was wiped away.  That thing that I had saw earlier as its weakness had become its strength.

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at this piece over the last week or so and there’s something about it  that keeps drawing me back to it.  Maybe it is simply the colors  or the meditative stillness between the Red Tree and the Moon.  I don’t know for sure.

I call this piece, which is a 12″ by 24″ canvas, Prismatic Moment.  I have spoke before of us all being prismatic beings, filled with many colors, dimensions and sides but seldom showing but only a few of these things to any other person.  I see this painting as being one of those rare moments when one is fully expressed, when one is seen for exactly who and what they truly are.

I don’t know if we have many of those moments in our lives.  I think they may be rare but I could be wrong.  Do we ever fully see another person for all their colors and sides?  And do we ever truly show all our own colors and sides?  This piece makes me consider that thought…

Read Full Post »

In the Waiting

Posted in Painting, Poetry, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on May 2, 2016| 5 Comments »

GC Myers- In the Waiting sm… I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

-T.S. Eliot, East Coker, The Four Quartets

********************

I’ve been in a deep groove lately as I ready work for my upcoming June show, Part of the Pattern, at the Principle Gallery.  Part of finding this groove was returning in the last month or so to process of  transparent inkiness that marked the early incarnations of my work.  An example of this is the piece shown above, a 6″ by 24″ painting on paper that I am calling In the Waiting, taken from the Eliot lines above.

The strength of this wet work, at least for me, is in the way the fluidity of the paint creates the tension and contrast that carries the emotional content of the painting. The duskiness where light and dark comes together is filled with the anticipation of all that is to come, all unknown to the waiting Red Tree who attempts to tamp down its desire to imagine what is coming.

The goal is to put aside any faith or hope or love –as Eliot puts it so beautifully– and simply await the inevitability of what is to come without thought. But that stillness of thought makes the waiting tolerable and allows us to view that which is before without the influence of our desire, to see things as they really are.

But as we all know, that is easier said than done…

Read Full Post »

Peaceful Abode

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on April 27, 2016| 6 Comments »

GC Myers- Peaceful Abode

-Isaiah 32:18

*****************

This new painting, a 24″ by 18″ canvas, is titled Peaceful Abode.  and is part of my upcoming June show, Part of the Pattern, at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.

This piece has a bit of a different look even though it falls easily into my body of work. Maybe it’s the slight change in coloration or the slightly altered perspective from the rise of the hillside behind the lakefront buildings.

I don’t really know and, to tell the truth, I don’t want to think too much about it for fear of over-analyzing it.  I’ve enjoyed looking at this piece for the last week or so and find that it has a peaceful quality in it that is very soothing.

It takes me to a place far away from the rancor of politics, the horrors of violence we inflict on one another and the general chaos of our time.  It is the antithesis of nearly everything I see on the cable news networks.

The whole perspective of this piece seems to be inward looking, seeking that quiet and placid spot.  And looking at this piece, I believe for a brief moment that I have found it.

And that’s a good thing…

Read Full Post »

Contact

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on April 19, 2016| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Contact smThe morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears to hear it.

—Henry David Thoreau

********************

This new painting is 24″ by 30″ on canvas and is titled Contact.  The words from Thoreau above speak pretty clearly to what I see in this piece,  that we often ignore the beauty and wonder of the natural world that exists all around us.  How many of us take the time to actually look at the sway of the trees in the breeze or the pattern of the stars in the night sky?  Sadly, we’re more likely now to see these things on our phones or laptops.

We’re too  busy, too distracted to have much interaction or contact with the wonder of the world that is often within our reach.

The buildings here seem closed in and eyeless, almost as though they are turned away from and oblivious to the world beyond their narrow line of sight.  They are symbolically in the shadow of the hillside, rising in a pyramid-ish form toward the open fields and woods that open to the radiating sky.  The sun has a warm and eye-like presence and the Red Tree seems to have reached a sort of tranquil communion with it.

Contact.

Read Full Post »

Door to Bliss

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on April 11, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Door to BlissFollow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.
–Joseph Campbell

*****************

I call this new painting, which is 24″high  by 8″ wide on canvas, Door to Bliss.  The title refers to the well worn quote from the late mythologist Joseph Campbell, shown above, that advises us that if we work at that thing that we truly love, it will find a way to provide for us.

It will find the door that moves you forward and will open it once you have fully worked your way to it.

And from personal experience, I can attest to the truth behind the words.

I was going to write a whole spiel about setting goals and allowing and trusting your subconscious mind to make the decisions that will ultimately lead you to those doors.  But I think that simple quote and the painting itself say enough without me muddying the waters.

I often use tree trunks in the foreground of either side of my paintings to act as a sort of stage curtain which further highlights the central figure.  These trees also can be viewed as door frame through which the viewer is invited to pass.  That’s how I saw these two trunks in this piece– as points that must be worked to and passed by before entering that desired location, that place of bliss.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »