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Archive for the ‘Recent Paintings’ Category

The Enigma

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , on April 1, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- The EnigmaThis is another new painting, an 18″ by 18″ canvas piece that was an immediate enigma to me even as it was barely half-finished on the easel.  I was drawn strongly to it but couldn’t put my finger on what it was that I was seeing.

It has a different feel from the other work in this semi-series of paintings that I’ve been working on as of late.  The sky has a paler, almost desaturated, feel than most of the other pieces which pops against the darker  silhouette-like forms of the landscape.  This combination of color and the twists of the swirling rays create, for me, a mesmerizing effect and I find myself mentally clawing towards the whiteness of the sun/moon.

This newer work lends itself to thoughts of great mysteries, of greater forces that move beyond our comprehension, and this piece is perhaps one of the most telling examples so far.  That sky seems oblivious to the life that exists in the pale light it casts to it.  The tree– I chose to go with a darker green instead of my normal red to maintain the silhouette effect– seems desirous of joining itself to those forces, of unlocking those mysteries held above it.    But despite climbing to the highest points it remains anchored to its terrestrial existence.

But it feels the pale light and still reaches for it without knowing why.  There’s something there, something that both calms and excites action, but the character of the tree just can’t quite touch upon what that thing is.

Just like the appeal I feel for this painting…

The title for this piece is, of course, The Enigma.

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In the Dreamlight

Posted in Biographical, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on March 29, 2016| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- In the DreamlightI’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.

—Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

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This is another new painting that is slated for my annual show, Part of the Pattern, at the Principle Gallery which opens June 3.  I call this piece, a 36″ by 12″ canvas, In the Dreamlight.  It has, at least to my eye, a contrasting feeling of vague dreaminess along with one of ultra-clarity.  Kind of like the feeling of those dreams that I have had that linger with me for years afterward.

I think we may have all had those dreams, those visions that reveal some mystery and spark some sort of inner questioning.  I still vividly remember several dreams from my childhood and, much like Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights character Catherine’s words shown above, they have altered the color of my mind.

Often, I find myself flashing back to those dreams, rerunning and experiencing once again portions of them in my present mind.  They are often enigmatic and filled with a mystery that begs to be answered.  And my mind believes they are answerable if I look long and hard enough.

In some ways I believe that is the purpose of my work– to somehow uncover the answers to these dreamed questions.  If the dreams are symbolic, might not the answer be found in a like symbolism?

As it is with all so  many things, I don’t know the answer.  But this painting reminds me of that feeling, that sense of being so near to the center of the mystery yet never quite being able to truly know the answer.

But maybe if I look once more, I will see what I’m seeking…

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Land of Heart’s Desire

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on March 25, 2016| Leave a Comment »

GC MyersFaeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame. 
― W.B. Yeats, The Land of Heart’s Desire

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I was going to write more about this new 18″ by 18″ canvas but after coming across the verse above from the first performed play from the great Irish poet/playwright William Butler Yeats, I thought I’d let those words speak for it alone.  I see these four lines in this painting and that’s good enough for me at the moment…

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First Flame

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on March 21, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- First FlameLight thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

—Terry Pratchett

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Last week, I featured a painting called Early Riser and spoke a bit about being just that– an early riser.  This is another new piece in that same vein, a 30″ by 30″ canvas that deals with the Red Tree greeting the first light of morning as it sweeps away the darkness of night.  I call this painting First Flame.

I’ve been thinking about this relationship with light, about the need to not waste the light of the day.  It reminds me of the rarity of light in this universe and how much darkness there is throughout its vastness, punctuated by the light of distant stars.

Light means life in this universe, so far as we know.  Everything we depend on for our continued survival is itself dependent on light and perhaps we ourselves are comprised of  and animated by light.

We are beings of light.

And perhaps there is a type reverence shown here in this painting with that knowledge at hand.

Looking now at this painting after writing these words, I can see many things in it which confirm this interpretation.  The cemetery in the shadow of the church, for example– an implication of death being devoid of light.  The orchard at the bottom right that waits for the feeding light of the sunlight. And the fruit stands that are dark and closed.

So long as the sun rises each morning, life goes on– for us as a group and for personally for myself.

To use my all-time favorite Kurt Vonnegut-ism: So it goes…

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The Veil and the Heart

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on March 15, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- The Veil and the HeartToday we are searching for things in nature that are hidden behind the veil of appearance… We look for and paint this inner, spiritual side of nature.
-Franz Marc

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This is a new painting, a 36″ by 12″ canvas piece that I am calling The Veil and the Heart.  It is a continuation of the patterned sky series that has been occupying me as of late, a group which will no doubt play a large part in my annual June show at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria.

I see the red sun here as a symbol for the type of truth that can’t be veiled, can’t be covered.  While there are forces and powers beyond our perception, as I have written about concerning the thought behind this series of patterns and veils, there are also certainties and truths that cannot be obscured in any way.

It may be our own truth, who we really are as a person and how that forms the way in which we maintain a relationship with the world in which we exist.  It may be how we come to accept our place as a tiny piece in the puzzle of a universe that seems vast and largely unaware of us.

Maybe that red sun represents the universe, for a brief  moment, being aware of us.

I don’t really know.

I’ve said those words so many times over the years, especially in regard to my work.  You would think after all this time that I would be able to say definitively what is contained in my work.  But I can’t.  Just about every piece has a mystery in it, a veiled thought or meaning that shows just enough of itself to let me know it is there but remains elusive.  Even this painting has a meaning that seems easily within my grasp one moment and has another in the next.

 Like that red sun, you see it and understand it but you’re not sure why.  And maybe that is the way it should be, the way it is meant to be.

I don’t really know…

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Icon: Martin P.

Posted in Biographical, Favorite Things, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on March 11, 2016| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- Icon-MartinI thought I had put the Icon series on hold for a bit as I moved more heavily into the work for my upcoming shows in June and July.  But the other day I just had an itch to jump quickly into one of the ancestors who remains prominent but a bit of a mystery for me.  It was painted quickly without hardly any dawdling over it and by the time it was blocked out in the red oxide paint that I use for my underpainting it felt like it was coming to life.

The painting is a 12″ by 12″ canvas that is titled Icon: Martin P.  It is my depiction of my 3rd great-grandfather, a man born in Canada sometime around 1800.  I have seen his birth year listed as 1798, 1800 and 1802.  His name is also somewhat up for debate.  It has come down through time as the anglicized Martin Perry but I have seen the last name listed  as the French-based Paré, Parent and Poirer.  He was of French-Canadian descent, that is without dispute.  Outside of this and a few other facts, there is little else to go on besides assumptions that can be gleaned from what little is known and rumors from the family that remains in the far north of New York state, near the Canadian border.

For instance, there is no known record of the name of his wife, my 3rd great-grandmother.  I have heard rumors from the family there that she was a maiden from the Mohawk tribe that occupied a reservation in the area where Martin came to live but there is no evidence of this, either in records or in DNA.  I have heard from a professional genealogist who ran into this dead-end and was unsuccessful in uncovering anything.

Martin was not known to be a farmer though his children all ended up as such.  He was rumored to have been a coureur des bois, literally a wood’s runner or woodsman,  which was basically a frontier figure who lived as a hunter and sometime guide.  In the few records I can find from his later life, he is listed simply as a laborer, no doubt at a time when the idea of being a woodsy, especially an old one, was on the decline in the quickly settling areas of the east.

But one thing I do know is that he must have been a tough old man.  At the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted in late 1861, along with son of the same name, at the age of 60 years old.  He served in the 98th New York Infantry and in the following year, saw action at the Battle of Williamsburg and the the Battle of Seven Pines. which was at that time, early in the Civil War, the largest conflict of the campaign.

I don’t know how he came through it all except to note that he was mustered out later that year, 1862, due to disability.  The idea of a 60 year old man marching a thousand or so miles and fighting in battles that were often at close range seems pretty wild in these times but I don’t think it was such for a man raised in the northern wilds.  He would have been used to tough conditions, to wet and cold and a spartan lifestyle.  For him to have been pulled from the conflict points to a real injury, illness or wound of some sort.

I have yet to find the date of his death.  Records in that time and place are often iffy at best but I continue to search.

So, in my depiction of Martin Perry I see him as that coureur des bois, bearded and dressed in buckskin.  From what I can tell, he lived on the fringes of the civilized world  with a foot always in the wild.

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Early Riser

Posted in Biographical, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on March 10, 2016| 6 Comments »

GC Myers- Early RiserThe early morning has gold in its mouth.

—Benjamin Franklin

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I am an early riser.

I guess that I’m here in the studio at 5:30 in the morning is a testament to that fact.  It’s always been that way for me even as a child.  The prospect of what the new day might bring has always been exciting enough to rouse me in the early morning.  On those days when I have a less than thrilling or an even dreaded task before me, the thought of getting started on that task so that it will just get done and out of the way does the same.

At times in my life when I worked the  overnight third shift at other jobs, the idea of going to bed when the day was breaking seemed awful and the day always felt already spent  when I eventually woke up only a few hours later, as though all possibility was drained from it while I slept.  I could never get used to that.

As an early riser, you get used to seeing the day unfold and the light changing as the sun rises.  Each morning is teeming with the potential of the new.  Even when things aren’t going well, there seems to be the possibility that this next new day will bring that change that alters one’s course in a better way.

I think that’s what I see in this new painting, a 24″ by 30″ canvas that I am calling Early Riser, of course.  The sun and its rays seem new and different but filled with a potency of possibility for the eagerly waiting Red Tree.  Meanwhile, the neighboring community slumbers, not witnessing the breaking wonder that is the new day.

This was  a difficult painting.  By that I mean it took several attempts to achieve a sky that served what I felt as I laid out the initial underpainting or bones of the piece.  Twice I got quite a ways into the sky, spending many hours each time, before painting it over and restarting.  They were patterned skies but never captured a rhythm that synced with my own emotions in the piece.  As soon as I set out the first rays of this last attempt, it felt right for this painting and everything fell into place.

And early this morning, I feel this captures my eagerness to greet the day.  Now, I have to go– there are things to be done.

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Steeple

Posted in Poetry, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on March 7, 2016| 4 Comments »

GC Myers-- SteepleI have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple; garlands from window to window; golden chains from star to star, and I dance.

—Arthur Rimbaud

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I was looking for a title for this new painting which is a 24″ by 12″ canvas.  I was seeing joy and exhilaration in it as well as the Red Tree being at the pinnacle or highest point.  Looking at a list of synonyms for the word pinnacle, I spotted the word steeple.  At first I thought it a bit odd, thinking of a steeple only in the context of a church’s architecture.

But then I realized that a steeple is built to be the highest point, reaching upward toward the heavens.  I began to think of the many times I had painted my Red Tree on sharp sided mounds that attempted to push it further upward, above the surrounding earth.  Was that mound not a steeple of some sort? Were not many of these paintings ultimately about reaching out to unknown forces as well as seeking inner peace?

Looking at this painting, I began to see it clearly as a steeple.  A steeple for a place of joy.  I guess that’s why the line from poet Arthur Rimbaud at the top fit so well,  Though most of the poetry from his very short career is dark and brooding in its imagery, I found the image put forth in this line bright and joyous.  It is  filled with the energy of self-realization, of the awareness of one’s connection to the cosmos.

Perhaps those swirls in the sky are ropes waiting to be stretched from this steeple to the next…

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If…

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

GC Myers- If...I wasn’t going to feature another new painting here this morning but I felt that this piece just fits perfectly into the momentary state of our politics.  At least how it appears to me.

In most of the recent paintings from this series featuring patterned skies (I don’t know what else to call them) the sky represents hidden forces and powers that are just beyond our sight and reach.  It’s pretty much the same with this piece except that there is, at least for me, a more chaotic and turbulent aspect in the sky.

The tree stands as a direct counterpoint to this chaos, straight and unwavering.  It  has strength and resolve along with a placid sense of being.  A sense of self awareness beyond the influence of the madness occurring beyond it.  While it is simple in design, it has been a painting that has given me a lot to think about while at the same time calming me.

As I was nearing the end of this 18″ by 24″ piece, I began to think of the famous poem If from Rudyard Kipling and how it related in many ways to how I was seeing this painting.  The poem is basically a father’s advice to his son, telling him all of the things he should learn to endure if he wants to become a man.  It would also be good advice for the ideal political candidate, male or female.  I think most of the people we have seen in this year’s presidential primaries fail to meet most of those requirements that Kipling has laid out.

The poem is below but if you would rather hear it read aloud, there is a recording of actor Michael Caine reading it at the bottom.

If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: 

.

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ 

.

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son! 
—Rudyard Kipling, If

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All We Do Not Know

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , on February 29, 2016| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- All We Do Not KnowMan can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown.

–Claude Bernard

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I call this new painting, a 24″ by 24″ canvas, All We Do Not Know.  It’s a continuation of my recent work incorporating a patterned background or sky.  One of the things that draws me is that the strength of the patterns allow for simpler, sparser compositions.  A single tree set in a simple landscape set against this pattern sends out its message clearly, without the veil of superfluous detail.

For me, I see this painting as being about the need to continue our search for knowledge and wisdom.  We know so little even though at this point in time we have perhaps more knowledge than at any time that came before.  Every age has a certain hubris about its place at the pinnacle of what is known and we certainly are no different.

Yet one only has to look into the sky and know that there are forces and powers beyond our comprehension.  There are things that we sense but cannot see and perhaps may never know.  But, as the great 19th century physiologist Claude Bernard points out above, we can only learn by moving toward that great unknown.

Look for that thing we don know.  It is as much a seeking of the spiritual and existential as it is a scientific search.

There is always more to learn, a new horizon to which we can aspire.  And perhaps that is where this path  is taking us.

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