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Archive for the ‘Recent Paintings’ Category

Past Present Future

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on September 17, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Past Present FutureI start my first experience as a teacher today with the  two day workshop being held at the Yates County Arts Center in Penn Yan.  I have to admit to being a bit nervous even though I will simply be doing what I have done nearly every day for the past two decades.  It’s just that I normally do it in the privacy of my studio– silently and without a group watching every move.  I hope all the spitting and swearing doesn’t turn the students off too much.

Of course, that’s a joke– I don’t swear that much in the studio.  But in the weeks leading up to this workshop, I have become very self conscious of my actions as I paint, trying to minimize any goofy traits that might come across when I am standing in front of the group.  I think I have the spitting under control.

During this time, as I was prepping for the workshop and finishing a group of new work to take with me for Sunday’s Gallery talk at the Principle Gallery, I noticed that so many of the techniques that I will be showing in the next couple of days still make up the basis for my new work.

Take for example the painting shown at the top, a 12″ by 12″ canvas called Past Present Future.  Outside of several layers of glazing,  it is very much painted in the same manner as much of my work from 17 or 18 years back.  The shapes evolve and layers are added, but the basic technique is very much the same.

I am excited to see how the students at this workshop adapt this technique to their own sensibilities and their own expression.  I will let you know how it goes.

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Sunbeam Unreal

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , , , on September 15, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- SunbeamThe aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance, and this, and not the external manner and detail, is true reality.
—Aristotle
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This new painting, a small 6″ by 12″ canvas that will going with me to Alexandria this coming Sunday for my Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery,  intrigues me on many levels but mainly in the way in which it challenges my own perception of reality.

I wondered how light would appear in a world that gave it different properties.  For instance, what if instead of a sun, that ever-burning orb in the sky, our light was provided by a ring of light that cut across the sky?  And what if the source of light was darker than the light it provided?  How would it affect how we looked at our world?

The odd thing is that my mind accepts the reality that was created.  And that speaks to the words of Aristotle at the top of the page.  The significance of a piece of art is in how our mind interprets the reality of it, in how it connects  with our inner needs and perceptions.

For me, this small painting works on those terms.  It is warm and inviting and familiar even though the reality of the setting is alien to me.  I feel as comfortable–  perhaps even more– in this environment as I would in a perfectly represented image of the real world in which we live.

And that is all I ask of it…

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Jazz (Song One)

Posted in Influences, Music, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on September 12, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Jazz ( Song One)The artist is a man who finds that the form or shape of things externally corresponds, in some strange way, to the movements of his mental and emotional life.

—Graham Collier 

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I have been working on dream inspired patterned forms, as I’ve noted here several times recently.  I have been incorporating into the layers that make up my skies in simple landscapes where they serve to give added depth and texture.  It works really well in that context and it would be easy to just use it in that way.

But there is something about some of them that make me just push them to the forefront alone without masking them with any representational forms over them.  Something beyond narrative.  Elemental.  Like it is somehow tied to my own internal shapes and forms and patterns.

I was thinking this when I came across the quote at the top from the late jazz musician/composer Graham Collier.  It made so much sense because I think that is, in general, the attraction of art  for me– it’s an external harmony of internal elements.

I didn’t know much about Collier who died in 2011.  He was a bassist/bandleader/composer who was the first British grad of the Berklee College of Music.  He played around the world and also wrote extensively on jazz but he still wasn’t on my radar.  While I like jazz my knowledge, as it is in many things,  is pretty shallow.  So I decided that i should listen to some of Collier’s music.

The first song I heard was titled  Song One (Seven-Four) and it just clicked for me.  It was so familiar and seemed to be right in line with the piece at the top, a 12″ by 12″ painting on masonite panel.  It made me think about the connection with music, how sounds often take the form of shapes and colors in the minds of both musicians and listeners.

Again, very elemental.

So I began to think of these newer pieces as music.  It creates a context that makes sense for my mind, one that gives me a way of looking at the work without seeking representational forms.  It’s an exciting thing for me and I look forward to some newer explorations in this realm in the near future. For Graham Collier’s clarification, I am calling the piece at the top Jazz ( Song One).  Here it is :

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Quote of the Week: Candle

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on September 10, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- CandleThere are two ways of spreading light… To be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it.

–Edith Wharton

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This is a new piece,  8″ by 10″ on paper, that I am calling Candle.  Working on this painting, I determined that I wanted to keep the composition very simple and stark.  There was so much energy in the radiating forms that adding anything beyond the blue panel at the bottom would change the whole feel of the piece as I was seeing it.  The blue provides contrast and forms a horizon line that gives the whole image a measure of inward depth without detracting from the simplicity of the image, which I see as being essential to the strength of this painting.

Simplicity, as is often the case, translates as grace.  And grace of some form was what began to show in this piece as it unfolded.  I was reminded as I worked on this of the great (in my mind, the greatest British artist) JMW Turner‘s reputed dying words: The sun is God.  There is a spiritual element in how the sun is depicted in his work and I often feel that I am representing something more than a source of physical light and energy when I paint these sun orbs in my work.

Perhaps that something more is a presence beyond the physical.

I don’t know.  But for a moment, my uncertainty is relieved and I feel connected with the warmth and light from the presence that is the sun in this piece.

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Abstract Fears

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , on September 9, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Plates 2015I had a dream a month or so ago that has had me working on fields of painted shapes, trying to recapture the forms that captivated me in that dream.  It’s an elusive thing and I am still trying to figure out where this fits in my work.

GC Myers- Time Frames smI have used many of these attempts as the background texture under a few pieces featuring some of my normal imagery– the Red Tree in a landscape for example, like the painting shown here on the right.  I like the added depth that this background gives the work and could easily see it becoming a regular part of my process.

But part of me sees the painted group of shapes as an entity in and of itself, something that could and should stand alone.  Even though I feel my normal work is built primarily on abstract forms, showing a piece like the one shown here at the top of the page feels different in many ways, some of which raise fears in me.

First of all, it is based less on emotion than most of my work.  I think my work comes often across because it speaks of and to emotions common to us all.  This work feels more purely meditative, like I am looking at the building blocks of thought and matter.  They simply exist.  No emotion, no judgments, no narrative to fulfill.

And that scares me a bit.  Takes me out of my comfort zone and leaves me feeling more exposed even though I might actually be showing fewer aspects of myself in the work.  Maybe it’s a case of standing naked without the protection of any sort of cover, asking viewers to accept me as I am without trying to influence them with my choice of what I wear over my true being.

That’s a hard thing to do when you’ve been standing in front of people in one guise for so long.  So I struggle tying to determine if this new work can stand naked and alone.  There is much more to explore in it and over the next few months I hope to find the answers I am seeking.

As with all things, we shall see…

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Perpetua

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , on September 4, 2015| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Perpetua

The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual. That is why the revolutionary spiritual movements that declare all former things worthless are in the right, for nothing has yet happened.

—Franz Kafka

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I have been working on some new work that is built on layers of painted textures in the under painting.  They are often in their own way abstract pieces in themselves and I find myself contemplating the possibility of building more on these to create pure abstract paintings without any direction toward representation.  I think there will be at least several attempts in the future to at least explore the possibility, trying to see if I can satisfy my own needs within the realm of abstraction.  But for the moment, the abstract elements support, and hopefully enhance,  my own imagery.

Much like my normal gessoed surfaces, these painted underlying elements are meant to create a visual thumbprint, a distinct and individual surface that has a life force of its own and adds a measure of depth to the whole of the painting.  Some of the painted textures have been chaotic with multiple shapes and colors throughout.  Others use similar forms and colors set in a loosely patterned manner.  Whether they are random or built in a pattern, they must have some natural flow and depth within.

This new piece above is an 18″ by 18″ canvas that I call Perpetua.  It is built on a base of what I would call painted rectangular plates that seem to be descending into the background.  For me, it takes a simple image comprised of only a couple of elements and gives it added levels of depth and meaning.

When I look at this, that background has me considering things beyond the central figure of the Red Tree and its place in the moment.  It becomes a mere marker in a larger continuum, perhaps at the vanguard in its own present time but soon to be surpassed by the progress of the coming future.  Perhaps those plates represent images of past times and those things that were the cutting edges of those times, hovering in the background and supporting a new ascension.

Maybe.  Who knows?  I painted it and much of it remains a mystery to me.

And maybe that is the whole point…

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Quote of the Week: Satisfaction

Posted in Motivation, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on August 27, 2015| 3 Comments »

GC Myers- The Satisfaction smSatisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.

–Mahatma Gandhi

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I often paint the rows of a freshly cut field in my work.  While this creates an interesting visual effect with its pattern of alternating colors, it also satisfies my own need to express the importance — and necessity–of effort for myself and for my work.

I have often pointed out at gallery talks that I spend huge amounts of time alone working in my studio, well over 50,000 hours in the past fifteen years.  I usually make a joke of this, saying that I just tell people I am hard at work during my time in the studio so they will not bother me and that its really not that much work.  Okay, maybe there is some truth there as far as not having people bother me.  But the fact remains that while I find my time in the studio enjoyable as well as enlightening, it requires great effort and work.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I guess that’s because there is usually a moment after finishing a piece or a group of work for a show when I stop and look at the work in its state of completion.  In this moment there is a great sense of satisfaction at the result of my full efforts.  And that full effort gives the results a sense of completeness and their completeness brings me my own completeness, a fulfillment of some small purpose that I find necessary in order to persist in this world.

That small moment of satisfaction makes all the work, all the frustration and missteps, fade away and that which should have depleted me now serves as nourishment.  I find myself strengthened for another day.

Maybe that what I see in this new painting, an 18″ by 18″ canvas which is headed out to California.  It is called The Satisfaction, of course.  It very much reflects what I have written here, with the Red Tree representing someone looking back on the results of a long day of labor.  And again, they feel uplifted rather than worn down.

I know it’s not always that way.  There have been times when work has been very draining, definitely in my past and occasionally even now.  But knowing that  special moment of satisfaction that comes along every so often is out there makes me look forward to the task and the effort ahead.

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Time Frames

Posted in Influences, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on August 25, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Time Frames smI’ve been working on trying to create a patterned underpainting  in my work, inspired by a dream I had a few weeks back.  It still is moving ahead and is not yet what I saw (or, at least, what I recall seeing) in that dream.  It may never get to that state but it acts as a catalyst,  something that pushes me forward.  This small piece, a 9″ by 12″ canvas, uses blocks or plates much like those I saw in my dream to form a pattern that hovers barely vsisble in the sky.  It doesn’t have the intensity of the color of the dreamed vision but it still creates what I think is an interesting effect on this piece.  It serves as both a step forward and a self-contained entity.

I call this piece Time Frames, alluding to the shapes of the plates in the sky here. Like much of the underlying textures in my work, it refers to those  forces and knowledge that have untold influence on our world and our lives yet remain just beyond our perceptions.

All that we do not know.

At the moment, we are at the leading edge of all knowledge here in this world.  Yet, it is an edge that is always moving forward and what we believe today with all certainty may one day be revealed to be proved false.  Future generations may look back on us and wonder at some of the things we believed to be true.

But you live with what you know and what you see.  Blissfully in the moment even while obscured ultimate truths may be oh so near…

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A New Texture

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , on August 19, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- 2015 smBeen working on some new pieces, some with simple imagery with an added layer of random transparent forms making up a large block of the painting.  Here it creates an undertexture in the background which forms the sky on this untitled painting, a 12″ by 12″ canvas.  It has the same sort of chaotic feeling that I often try to create with my preliminary layers of gesso in prepping the panel on which I paint.  This canvas does have those layers of gesso giving it a mild texture but the transparent organic shapes painted over it have an overriding effect that carries and defines the sky here.

It’s still an experiment in progress but so far I like the effect and the feeling it creates here.  Now I am trying to envision how it might incorporate itself in the wider body of my work, to see if it adds something tangible to the work. I have to just give it a little time and study it a bit before it becomes a regular part of my work.

We’ll see…

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Lucid Dreaming

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 7, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Lucid DreamAll men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.

~Plutarch

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The other night I fell asleep early then awoke and after a bit tried to go back to sleep.  I flopped around trying to be comfortable but the wheels of my mind started turning and for a while I just lay there.  But there came a time when I slipped briefly into dreams even though I still felt awake.

It’s a strange feeling but it felt good at the same time because in those moments of lucid dreaming I saw a color and a surface that was new to me, one that I saw being used in my work.  It was multi-colored with blues and greens within it and a certain level of depth within the color that gave it a gorgeous glow.  Plus it was arranged in transparent plates that overlapped so that the combined colors deepened even more.

It’s hard to describe now because even in the time soon after waking I struggled to fully recall it in my memory.  It was there completely but in a vague sort of way.  It was not a color that I had worked with or had even seen though I can’t be sure of that.

I wanted to see it and tried to recreate it within my own range of color and technique.  I stumbled a bit at it for most of the day yesterday and finally realized that it would require something new, something different either in media or process to get the color and surface and depth that was still in there somewhere.

But the piece at the top did pop out during the day’s attempts and while it disappointed me because it didn’t fulfill my dream, it has an interesting feel that pleases me on another level.  Maybe this will take me a step closer to what I am seeing in my dream or maybe it will evolve into something different on its own, something I can’t yet envision.

It has shown itself in my dream so maybe it can come forward now if I keep looking for it with my waking mind.  Who knows?  You can never tell how things will turn out when you’re trying to take something from that inner world and move it out into the waking world.

We shall see…

 

 

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