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Archive for the ‘Recent Paintings’ Category

“Home+Land” in the Gallery

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on July 11, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers - Heart+Land

GC Myers – Heart+Land

Well, this morning has been a quiet one as I knock about in my studio that now feel empty after delivering the work for my solo show, Home+Land, to the West End Gallery.  There’s a sense of relief and befuddlement hanging in the air.  Over the past year I have had deadlines always hovering ahead of me, always something  waiting to be done.  So when a rare moment without a deadline pops up, it takes me a while to figure out how to deal with this bit of free time.  But I will find a way through this pesky free time.

At the West End, they were planning on hanging the show last night and this morning so that it would be available for previews by this afternoon and I’m eager to see how it looks.  It’s a pretty big show and I think it will be show with a lot of oomph in the space but I can’t be sure until it’s on the walls.

One piece that I think will look great in the space is the painting at the top, Heart+Land, a large 36″ by 36″ canvas. The size coupled with an opulently warm feel and a sky that seems to reach out to you makes it a piece that is hard to ignore.  At least, that’s how I feel.

I know when it was in the studio it was a piece that drew my eye on a regular basis.  For a while, I had this piece along with several others set up in the basement of my studio in an area where I do my daily workout.  I found this painting a great one to focus on while exercising, allowing myself to get lost in the layers of texture and the many shapes throughout the piece.  Very meditative. It made my workout so much easier.  I’m going to miss this piece for that reason and many others.

Anyway, the show is in the gallery.  Please stop into the West End Gallery to preview the work and if you’re in the Corning area on Friday evening, please stop in and say hello.

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Believer

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on July 10, 2015| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Believer smWe have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.

—Franklin D. Roosevelt

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This new painting, a 24″ by 30″ canvas that is part of my Home+Land show at the West End Gallery, is a piece that really has strong appeal for me personally.  Maybe it’s the warmth in its colors and the way its forms and textures flow together.  Or maybe it just has something to say to me.

I call this piece Believer and, for me, I saw differing forms of belief throughout the piece, as seen in the obvious reference to religious belief as represented in church and steeple.

The farm and silo I saw as a symbol of a belief in the earth and one’s own self-sufficiency, a belief centered on common sense and knowledge.  I saw the Red Tree as the believer, as FDR said in 1940, that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.  It is a symbol here of the dreamer, the explorer.  The believer of a better future.

The radiating sun represents a constant for all of these beliefs.  We all believe that the sun will come up each day.  It has always done so and I believe that it will probably continue that way for the foreseeable future.

I guess the point is that, unless we have abandoned all hope in ourselves and this world, we all have a belief system of some sort, whether it is in our own god (or gods) or in science and knowledge or in a better world beyond the horizon.

As for myself, I believe I’ll have another cup of coffee…

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Quote of the Week: Pasternak on Art

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on July 8, 2015| 1 Comment »

GC Myers-Foundling smArt is interested in life at the moment when the ray of power is passing through it.

—Boris Pasternak

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I think Pasternak (author of Doctor Zhivago) is really spot on with with this terse definition of art.  Art at its core is, for me, an attempt to affirm our existence and the existence of that life force within us.

I really like that term that Pasternak uses here– ray of power.  That description of the force that drives all living things jibes well with that animating force that I try to find in my own work, that indeterminate quality that makes a static thing seem to take on a life of its own.

How and if it comes through in the work is the interesting thing for me.  Sometimes, despite my extreme efforts, I cannot find that life force.  Maybe I should say because of my extreme efforts instead of despite.  Sometimes it seems as though trying to consciously find that thing prevents it from being found. It often finally appears when I don’t focus on that aspect and lose myself in the process of actually painting– the colors, lines and forms before me.

It’s as though you don’t find it.  It finds you.

I chose the painting at the top, Foundling, to illustrate this post before I wrote that last line but it fits so well with the idea of that ray of power as well as the idea of it finding you.  This painting, a 24″ by 36″ canvas, is, of course, from my upcoming show, Home+Land, opening July 17 at the West End Gallery.

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Beginning to See the Light

Posted in Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on July 6, 2015| 3 Comments »

Beginning to See the Light smHere’s another new painting that is part of my upcoming show, Home+Land,at the West End Gallery, opening July 17.  This 12″ by 12″ canvas is titled Beginning to See the Light, which sort of continues a theme from yesterday’s post as the title is also the title of a Velvet Underground song.

While I was working on yesterday’s post and listening to some music from the Velvets, I kept looking at this piece and when this song came on it just seemed right as a title for it in the moment.  It’s not that the lyrics necessarily jibed well but just the idea of that moment of realization that the title possesses seemed right because this is what I see in this piece– arriving at a moment of understanding.  The world seems calm and right but vivid in that moment.

Here’s the song that gave me the title.  It’s coupled with some absurdist/avant garde imagery from a 1968 Soviet film, The Color of Pomegranates.  I don’t know how relevant this is to the song but it’s kind of interesting?

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Some Kinda Love

Posted in Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on July 5, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers-Heartshare smSunday morning on a holiday weekend but no holiday here in the studio yet.  No, not for another week or so as I get ready for my Home+Land show that opens in just under two weeks, on July 17 at the West End Gallery.  It’s been crazy busy the last couple of weeks but I am seeing the results coming clearer now and I think it has a real pop to it, one that has me getting excited to see the work hanging in the gallery.

There’s just something about seeing the work spaced on the gallery wall and not propped up in various positions around the studio that makes me see it as something apart from myself, something in and of itself.  It’s a bittersweet but exciting moment for me when I see a painting that has taken on personal meaning for me in the studio, like the one shown above, Heartshare, on the wall of the gallery.

It really lays claim to its own identity at that point and my time with it is close to an end.  It has become what it is and takes on the characteristics of the viewer, perhaps symbolizing things that I never saw or imagined in it myself.  That’s the mystery and beauty of this thing called art– sometimes one thing takes on many different meanings for different people.  There are no absolutes.

Well, it is Sunday morning and time for a little music so I thought I’d carry through on the theme of the painting at the top.  Here’s a song  called Some Kinda Love from the Velvet Underground.  Formed by Lou Reed and John Cale, the Velvets were one of the most influential bands of the mid-60’s.  A good rhythm to start your Sunday.  Have a great day.

FYI: The painting at the top, Heartshare, is 16″ by 20″ on canvas and is part of a series of paintings I’ve done over the last several years based on the myth of Baucis and Philemon.

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In the Moment of Grace

Posted in Current Events, Music, Opinion, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , , , , on June 28, 2015| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- In the Moment of GraceThis is a new piece, an 18″ by 24″ painting on panel, that  is part of my upcoming show at the West End Gallery.  It is titled In the Moment of Grace.  Fittingly, it was finished in the time that I listened to President Obama‘s stirring eulogy for the victims of the Charleston tragedy on Friday in which he pulled its theme from the classic hymn Amazing Grace.  Although I was already fully invested in  this painting, that fact added so much more meaning to it for me.

That eulogy was the culmination of a remarkable and historic week, one that found the Supreme Court issuing decisions that upheld the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and made Gay Marriage a right throughout the nation.  And if that wasn’t enough, the Confederate flag finally came down in South Carolina, though it took the act one young black woman willing to be imprisoned for her civil disobedience rather than the act of an intransigent State House and Senate.  The President’s words over the fallen in South Carolina framed the end of this week perfectly.

Amazing Grace.

Despite the wonder of it all, I know there is much more to be done and more conflicts to be faced in the struggle for equality and fairness for all.  That is the nature of change and change is the nature of America.  And I think that is the point that is missed by so many of those who hold so tightly onto the past,  those people who say that they want “their country” back: America is not a monolith, not owned by one group or region and cannot be defined by one thing, person, place or time.

That is its strength.  Like a great work of art, it lives always in the present.  And the present is an inclusive and shifting prism, a kaleidoscope or, yes, a rainbow of diverse people who make up this nation.  It has eventually always made room for all who sought to live in that light and it is that spirit of inclusion that separates us from the rest of the world.  Tolerance unifies a disparate people and brings us closer to grace.

As I said, there are many more hurdles to be overcome, more work to be done.  I could continue preaching here for a while but I wish to just sit back for a moment and relish the present.  So, for this Sunday morning music I thought a little Amazing Grace would be appropriate.  Her is a truly beautiful version from Judy Collins and the Boys Choir of Harlem, sung on the National Mall in Washington, DC.

Have a good Sunday and reflect for a moment on this remarkable week.

 

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Home+Land

Posted in Influences, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on June 22, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers Home+Land smThe ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

–Maya Angelou

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This is the title painting, Home+Land,  for my next solo show which opens July 17 at the West End Gallery in Corning.  It’s a pretty large painting at 36″ high  by 48″ wide on canvas and one that fairly represents my feelings on how we are tied to the land, how we identify home with a sense of place.  This is the theme for this show as well as for much of my work in general.

I have long equated the idea of home with the landscape, with how we are shaped by those places that we know from an early age.  The rhythm, the shapes and the perspectives of the landscape that surrounds us becomes part of who we are , something that travels with us throughout our lives. Wherever we go, we look for similarities to that feeling of our home landscape.

It might be in the actual landforms or the way in which the vegetation interacts with the land and the structures of the homes there. It simply looks like home.  Or it might be just in the way the light strikes the land or the rhythm and flow of movement within the landscape that create a level of comfort that equates to that feeling of home.

I know, for myself, that there have been places where I have been where the landscape has been so different from the hills and fields surrounding my original home yet I still feel a sense of being at home.  And there are other places that, while similar in shape and having beauty and charms of their own, leave me uneasy and feeling out of place.  And there are places in which I immediately feel out of place in an alien way, places to which I could never fully adapt.  Definitely not at home.

I guess what I am trying to say is that home is a mix of feeling and place.  It is that place where you feel as comfortable and satisfied in place as the Red Tree in the painting above.

 

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Next Up: Home+Land

Posted in Biographical, Painting, Recent Paintings, Work In Progress, tagged , , , , on June 13, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers WIP in Studio 2015 JuneThere wasn’t much of a break after getting back from last Friday’s opening of my show, Native Voice, at the Principle Gallery, which hangs there until July 6th.  No, there was another deadline waiting for me when I returned to the studio: the July 17 opening of  my annual show at the West End Gallery, this year titled Home+Land.  The last week has seen me fall right back into the groove that was formed in prepping for the Principle Gallery show.

This is not an unusual pattern.  This is the 13th year that my West End show has began right on the heels of my Principle Gallery show and  in that time I have developed a way of coping with the tight schedule: heavy drinking.  Not really but there are days sometimes that feel like that might not be such a bad idea, especially those ones where the creative thread seems to disappear briefly and a bit of panic rises in me.  And believe me, that does happen from time to time.

Yesterday, for example.  I had finished a new painting ( the one at the top) and was still in that piece in my mind and not ready to move on quite yet.  I checked out my calendar to see where I was in relation to the opening and it just seemed, in that moment when my mind was still not yet moving on to the next task, that there was so much to do and so little time in which to complete it. A horrible ball of tension built within me and I found myself paralyzed with panic for a while.  My mind just stalled with that calendar imposed on it.  I paced around the studio for quite a while, trying to gain footing and move past this.

I knew that I could and that I would.  The experience of having been through this so many times before calms those nerves and lets me keep my eyes on what is in front of me rather than fretting about what is ahead.  And that is the secret to overcoming the pressure of a deadline such as this– staying focused in the moment.  Clearing the mind of worries about things that may or may not occur in the future and immersing yourself in the task at hand.  And luckily for me the task that I normally face is one, by its very nature, that normally calms my anxieties.

So I moved immediately to the paint and within minutes of the first brushstroke the anxiety seemed to ease.  The mind cleared.  The calendar seemed trivial and distant. All I saw was the scene that began to take shape in front of me and all of my thoughts were simple reactions to what I was doing on the canvas.

All was well again.

That being said, there is still much to do for the upcoming show and I am sure there will more incidents like yesterday in the next month.  But I am prepared and the show thus far looks and feels very good to me, which in itself is a calming agent.  I just thought I would give you an inside look at one of the parts of the process that sometimes gets swept under the rug– you don’t see it but it’s often there underneath the surface.

 

 

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Voice in the Gallery

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on June 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »

2015 Principle Gallery June GC Myers3The work has been hung and all that remains is to head down to the DC area a little later for tomorrow’s opening for my show Native Voice at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.  My friends at the gallery sent me a few shots of the show in the minutes after they finished the hanging yesterday and I am pleased at the way the work presents itself.

With the salon-style hanging, with the paintings presented densely packed and filling the wall , there is a real concentration of color and the work comes off the wall in a manner that might befit stained glass windows.  And that is a comparison that I don’t mind at all.  You can see it well in the photo above with Jessica hard at work at her desk in front of the paintings.

Native Voice is my 16th show  at the Principle Gallery‘s Alexandria location and it opens tomorrow, Friday. June 5.  The reception runs from 6:30  until 9 PM and is open to the public.  It’s a casual affair so please stop in and say hello.  I look forward to seeing you there.

2015 Principle Gallery June GC Myers

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Native Voice

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on June 3, 2015| 3 Comments »

GC Myers- Native Voice smThis is the painting, a 24″ by 48″ canvas, that spawned the title of my show, Native Voice, that opens this Friday at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria.

I’ve been struggling to describe what I mean by the term native voice.  I think we all have a native voice, a quality that reflects the true self that comes out of us naturally, unguarded and without thought.  It is in the way we speak with family and friends, in the rhythm and manner of our words.  It is in our local accent and vernacular.

It reflects the people and places and events that shaped us, all blending together in one unique package that bears our unique fingerprint and signature.  We might be able to mask these things temporarily but our native voice is always near the surface, ready to emerge.

Applying this to painting, I see this native voice as being the way an artist naturally fashions a painting, in how they perceive the world and describe it to others through their work.  It is that state of being when pretense is put aside, conscious thought diminished, and the process becomes intuitive and reactive, each reaction coming naturally.  I would describe it in the way a child might paint when left to their own devices– pure and expressive.

I think this show bears this title well.  I know that it feels natural and true to myself.  I tried to not focus on concepts or themes as I painted, just let the work fall out as it would.  As a result, when I delivered the show this past Saturday, I had a hard time describing much of it to the folks at the gallery.  How do you describe something that is just a part of you, something that just is?

Now I doubt that this comes anywhere close to expressing what I see in that term Native Voice.  But like talking to friends or family, if you are attuned to what I do with my work  you’ll probably understand my native voice.  If not, you’ll most likely think I’m that strange guy walking down the street muttering to himself.

And that’s okay, too.

 

 

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