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Archive for the ‘Recent Paintings’ Category

Layers

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on July 14, 2014| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Layers

I am in the final days of preparations for my annual solo show at the West End Gallery in Corning which opens next Friday, July 25th.  It’s really coming together in all areas and I think it will hang together very, very well.  I’m very much looking forward to seeing it in the gallery.

The title for the show comes from the painting shown here, Layers, a 24″ by 36″ canvas.  I was originally going to call the show Strata after a group of paintings from that series that will be in this show but after looking closer at the work in this show I realized that there were layers of all sorts in my work, not only in the underground portion of the Strata pieces.

I described this a bit more in a statement for the show:

I chose the title for this year’s West End Gallery show, Layers, after a re-examination of my work where I tried to determine what themes might have appeared in it, often without thought or guidance from me, through the years. The thing that struck me was how often the paintings were about layers.

Layers in the literal sense, as in the Archaeology and Strata series where the actual underground layers’ patterns become integral rhythmic parts of the painting.

Layers of depth into the picture plane, represented often by a path passing through layers of rolling landscape. Usually to a distant horizon and a sun/moon beyond.

Layers of texture, often chaotic, in the surface of the paintings which add depth and meaning, catching and darkening colors in the depths and lightening them at the highest points.

Layers of color as in the skies of much of my work that require dozens and dozens of layers of color, to the point that only a tiny bit of most of the layers show through. But without each layer, even those that barely show, the painting would lack its fullness.

Layers of meaning. Most of these works have an easy accessibility and a simplicity that can be understood and enjoyed with a casual observation but beyond that there is a layer, even layers, of emotion that are often only revealed by a deeper examination, allowing the color, the forms and the textures to fully fill in the blanks.

Perhaps these layers represent those layers in our world, our emotional and spiritual spheres that, while unseen, move us forward in our lives.

I don’t know the why’s or the what’s of them. I only know that for me these layers add something to the work that I never could have imagined.

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Moonlight Revelation

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on July 1, 2014| 3 Comments »

GC Myers- Moonlight RevelationThe revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.
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-Ralph Waldo Emerson
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When I look at this  new painting, a 24″ by 24″ canvas, it gives me a sense of conscious dreaming, of  taking those deepest  and largest internal wishes and making them known to the world, bringing them into the realm of possibility.  I think there’s something potent in the idea of this sort of imagining, of seeing oneself in different circumstances, in different lights.  It sets courses and opens windows of possibility.  It unsettles us and stirs change.
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It also makes me wonder how this sort of dreaming changes over the course of our lives,  I know as a child I was always immersed in daydreams that took me to far-reaching places under the wildest of circumstances.  Yet while I still daydream, as an adult my dreams have changed and become far more limited and smaller in scope, much less expansive than they were in my youth.  Perhaps it is a product of pure practicality, of having realized my own limitations and what is possible for the person I believe myself to be.  Or maybe my desires have have lessened by virtue of  simple acceptance and comfort in the present.
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When do we lose the capacity for the large dreams of childhood?  Is it when the world loses some of that sense of wonder that came with the fresh eyes of youth?  Is it possible to imagine unlimited possibilities when the sight of a bright and full moon rising fails to inspire you?
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Maybe that’s what I see here, a recapturing of that wonder in seeing the moon and all that is possible under its gaze.
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This painting, Moonlight Revelation, will be at the West End Gallery as part of my solo show there, Layers, which opens July 25.

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Seeking Uncertainty

Posted in Opinion, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on June 25, 2014| 2 Comments »

Doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is an absurd one.

–Voltaire

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GC Myers- Twilight WandererMuch of my work has a journey or a quest as its central theme and the odd thing is that I don’t have a solid idea of what the object is that I am seeking in this work.  I have thought it was many things over the years, things like wisdom and knowledge and inner peace and so on.  But it comes down to a more fundamental level or at least I think so this morning.  It may change by this afternoon.  I think the search is for an end to doubt or at least coming to an acceptance of my own lack of answers for the questions  that have often hung over us all.

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I would say the search is for certainty but as Voltaire points out above, certainty is an absurd condition.  That has been my view for some time as well.  Whenever I feel certainty coming on in me in anything I am filled with an overriding  anxiety.  I do not trust certainty.  I look at it as fool’s gold and when I see someone speak of anything with absolute certainty–particularly politicians and televangelists– I react with a certain degree of mistrust, probably because I see this absolutism leading to an extremism that has been the basis for many of the worst misdeeds throughout history.  Wars and holocausts, slavery and genocide, they all arose from some the beliefs held by one party in absolute certainty.

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So maybe the real quest is for a time and place where uncertainty is the order of the day, where certainty is vanquished.  A place where no person can say with any authority that they are above anyone else, that anyone else can be subjugated to their certainty.

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To say that we might be better off in a time with no certainty sounds absurd but perhaps to live in a time of certainty is even more so.

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The painting at the top is called, fittingly, Seeking Uncertainty, and is a new 10″ by 20 painting on canvas that will be part of my upcoming solo show, Layers,  at the West End Gallery in Corning which opens July 25.

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Quester’s Path

Posted in Influences, Opinion, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on June 20, 2014| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers-Quester's Path smIn the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.

-Mahatma Gandhi

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      I write a lot about the search for something and in reality I have no idea what that thing is.  Gandhi says that  it is Truth that we seek.  His Truth may be the same as the wisdom that others claim to be seeking.  Others say that life is a search for self or love or to shatter loneliness.

      As for me, I just don’t know.  I have thought it was many things over the years– truth, self, wisdom and a place to fit in.  But none of those ever truly fit for me.  I am not sure I am equipped with the wisdom to handle the truth and, as far as fitting in, I gave up on that some time back.  And I have the self too elusive a thing to seek for too long. It sometime feels like looking for a Bigfoot– you think you may have found it but it always ends up not being what you hoped.

      So I am left filled with even more uncertainty.  And I think this uncertainty is a good thing because it makes me believe that the real quest is for a reason, a purpose for our existence.  And maybe that makes the quest the  real purpose– to be aware of our world, our lives.  To hold up each day, to examine each moment.  Maybe in each moment there is that truth, that wisdom. that sense of self and inclusion, if only we look with some uncertainty, not knowing why we do so.

      But as I say, I don’t know.

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The painting at the top is Quester’s Path and is 8″ by 14″ on paper.  It is part of the show, Traveler, at the Principle Gallery.

 

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Shambhala at the Principle

Posted in Influences, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , on June 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers Shambhala smJust a reminder that my show, Traveler, is currently on view at the Principle Gallery and will be hanging there until July 9th.  One of the pieces still available is the piece above,  Shambhala, an 18″ by 36″ canvas piece that I wrote about on this blog back in early March.   It’s a painting that I feel very strongly about.  Since that was three months before the show went up, I thought I might replay that post today.  In March, I wrote:

According to Buddhist tradition, Shambhala is name given to what they consider the Pure Land, a utopia of sorts whose reality is as much spiritual as it is physical.  A place where everyone achieves a state of enlightenment and peace and tranquility.  Author James Hilton morphed the name into Shangri-La for his novel Lost Horizon which describes a group of Westerners who find themselves the guests in a small idyllic nation of this name tucked away in a protected Himalayan valley.

Whatever you call it, the idea of a place of enlightenment and peace seems pretty attractive to me these days, given the many events going on in the world being driven forward by such negative factors as greed, hate and fear.  That tranquil inner place is what I see in this new painting, an 18″ by 36″ canvas that carries this name, Shambhala.  The road , for me, represents the search that leads to this elusive state and the sun  a blissful guide with a warm lure that radiates throughout the sky.  The Red Tree is on a small peninsula set into a calm body of water, still attached to the world  but in an ethereal space.  It is in a state of being where it is firmly in the moment, having set aside the past and disregarding the future.  Just absorbing the now.

That’s what I see and that is what I imagine how that moment might feel but I am still on that path, looking ahead for a sight of that hopeful destination.

 

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After “Traveler”

Posted in Biographical, Music, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 8, 2014| 2 Comments »

GC Myers-Peerless sm

“Peerless” – Included in the “Traveler ” Show

I am back in the studio this morning  after returning from Friday night’s opening of Traveler at the Principle Gallery.  There is  a sense of relief in the aftermath, a deep exhalation at having mostly completed my obligations for the show.  But there is often a letdown as well,  a combination of having passed the endpoint  you’ve been working towards for months and  natural self-doubts about things you might have done differently in this show.  Fortunately, this show left me with only the mildest of letdowns.  I am already focused on my next projects and as far as doubts, while there may be just a few minor ones, I am sure that I have done all that was in my power for this show and the work in it.

We had a lovely few days in Alexandria, blessed with the best weather we’ve seen in all the years that we have been visiting in early June.  In the past, we have often endured 100° temperatures, torrential rains and excruciating humidity on this weekend.  But this year it was as perfect as the weather could possibly offer with temps in the high 70’s, blue cloudless skies and low humidity .   I am available for other  regional  weather reports, as well!  In short, perfect conditions to wander around the area a bit before the show.

We attended the ceremony  at the World War II Memorial honoring the living veterans on the 70th anniversary of the D-Day Invasion.  It was a beautiful setting there on the Mall, often moving,  and I felt very honored to be able to spend a short time in the near presence of those vets who survived that day of days.  We also were able to see the Andrew Wyeth show at the National Gallery that I wrote of earlier in the week.  It was wonderful to see so much of his work together, to be able to see the constancy and consistency of his personal vision as well as his ability to capture deep emotion within his scenes.

All in all, it was a great stay.  But the highlight was being to see many of the folks that I have met over the years who opted to spend some time at the gallery instead of out in that perfect weather.  I know that if I were in their shoes, it would have taken a lot to get  me there.  But for the many who did turn out and to Michele and her great staff– Clint, Jessica, Pamela and Chris along with guest bartender, Fernando Ascencio– I  extend a simple and grateful Thank You.  I wouldn’t be here right now writing this if not for you all.  And that I will always remember.

Okay, it is Sunday morning and we need to music.  I was thinking something calming while I decompress.  Here’s a classic Vince Guaraldi composition, Cast Your Fate to the Wind.  It has some of those same elements that you might recognize from his iconic work with the Peanuts gang.

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“Traveler” Opening Tonight / D-Day Remembrance

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , on June 6, 2014| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- UnforgettableTonight is finally the  opening for this year’s exhibit of my work at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.  Titled “Traveler”, this show marks fifteen years that I have been fortunate to have been asked to exhibit a solo show at the Principle Gallery, a fact that I wear as a badge of honor.  It’s something that I would never had expected when I began doing this and it pleases me that I have been able to maintain a level of consistent growth through this time.  It makes me want to continually surpass each past show and this year is no different.  I feel that  group of work is as good, if not better in its own way, as any group I have put in display there in the past.

So if you’re in the Alexandria/ DC area tonight, please stop in at the Principle Gallery.  I would love to see you there.  The piece that is shown here, Unforgettable, is from the show.  I am showing this painting because in a way it relates to a much more important aspect of this day – it is the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion on the beaches of Normandy during World War II.

Many people, myself included, are in awe of the tremendous sacrifice and courage of those men on that day and rightfully so.  I can’t sit here and even believe for a second that I could do what they did on those beaches that June day in France in 1944.  But I can honor the memory of those who didn’t make it off those beaches and honor the lives of those who did.  So many who survived are now giving way to death in old age– as it should be–so it remains to us, the living, to maintain the memory of that day and the blood they gave to the land.  And hope and pray that such a day should never again come in our lives.

I see this in this painting.  Let their memories be unforgettable.

On this day, I think it is fitting that Taps be the music for this day.  Here is a version from Arlington National Cemetery ( just a few miles down the road from Alexandria) performed by United States Army Band “Pershing’s Own” bugler,  SSG Drew Fremder  in the starkness of winter.  It is a song that never fails to bring a tear to my eyes.

Hope to see you tonight at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria.

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Proclamation/ Redux

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on June 5, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I am on the road today so  being short on time  I am reposting a short entry from a couple of months back, in early April.  I normally don’t repost articles so soon after they first appear but I consider this painting, Proclamation,  an important part of my show , Traveler, which opens tomorrow night at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.  It represents for me the culmination of the journey, the end point for which the entire journey was made.  It is about a true realization of self, of attainment of goal .  And therein lays the central theme of this show– that our lives can have direction and purpose.

So, without any more words, here is what I posted earlier:

GC Myers- Proclamation By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with what I love — the earth and the wonders thereof — the sea — the sun. All that we mean when we speak of the external world. A want to enter into it, to be part of it, to live in it, to learn from it, to lose all that is superficial and acquired in me and to become a conscious direct human being. I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming so that I may be (and here I have stopped and waited and waited and it’s no good — there’s only one phrase that will do) a child of the sun. About helping others, about carrying a light and so on, it seems false to say a single word. Let it be at that. A child of the sun.

—Katherine Mansfield

October, 1922, Her final journal entry

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I came across this final journal entry from the writer Katherine Mansfield, who died much too early from tuberculosis at age 35, and thought how much her words fit what I was thinking about this newer painting shown above. I call this 30″ by 40″ painting Proclamation and the thought and feeling it may be proclaiming might very well be the same as those expressed by Mansfield.

It is a painting that speaks of coming to an understanding of one’s self and stepping forward in the light to show that true identity. It is at once flawed and beautiful. Flawed by the scars of attained wisdom and change. Beautiful because it is honest and real, open to the elements and all who look upon it. It has become, to use Mansfield’s term, a child of the sun.

I think it would be too easy to say too much here.

Let it be at that. A child of the sun.

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Traveler- A Full Preview

Posted in Biographical, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , , on June 3, 2014| 7 Comments »

GC Myers- Find Your Way The  painting shown here on the right is a24″ by 36″ on canvas and is part of  my solo exhibit which opens Friday at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria.  It’s title is Find Your Way which fits neatly in with the show’s title, Traveler.  As concepts, both this painting and this show have to do with moving forward and discovering new territories within, becoming more than you were when the journey began.  Continuous seeking, sometimes plodding along, all to find that internal sense of comfort and belonging that some might refer to as home.  That place where your external reality one day matches your internal reality.

I’m not sure that was my goal when I began painting just a little over twenty years ago.  I knew that I needed to travel from that place inside where I had been dwelling and color and form became a vehicle for me, one that would carry me emotionally to new horizons and vistas, closer to that place where I might feel comfortably at home, inside and out.

And it has.

I am closer to home but it’s a journey that will most likely not end until my final day.  And that’s okay because I have come to appreciate the lessons of the trek and the sight of the new horizon coming into view, knowing that I am further along than I was it all began.

A big part of my journey has been my affiliation with a few galleries, all with which I have had long relationships, who have allowed me to continually keep searching  for that place that I don’t even know.  I began with the Principle Gallery in early 1997 and had my first solo show there in 2000.  It is where the Red Tree was born and this year marks fifteen years that they have allowed me to chronicle my internal travels in a show there each year.  It has been my great pleasure to have stumbled into such a wonderful place with such warm and real people, a place that makes me feel closer to home during this journey.

There’s a full preview of the show below that I quickly put together.  I hope it gives you that sense of the continuity of effort and purpose from image to image that I see.

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The Ferryman

Posted in Neat Stuff, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on June 2, 2014| 4 Comments »

GC Myers-The Ferryman smOne of the new paintings that is part of my solo show, Traveler,  at the Principle Gallery is a small piece titled The Ferryman.  It’s a depiction of a man poling a small boat across a body of water, simply constructed with the impact coming from its starkness and the intensity of its color.  It’s a theme that I have revisited several times over the years.  Perhaps it is the symbolic nature of the crossing or the essential nature of a single individual propelling themselves forward.

Probably both apply to my reasoning  for returning to this theme.

Whatever the case, it is a theme that has resonated with others over these years and recently struck a chord with author Thomas William Simpson, who was looking for appropriate artwork for his new book, The Ferryman: 8 Crossings to a Gentler Life.  He came across images of my prior ferrymen pieces and got in touch with me.  The result was this painting which graces the cover of his book which is a parable of sorts.

Here is the book description from Amazon:

Thomas William Simpson-The Ferryman Cover / GC Myers art This short tale about a man’s desire to live a different kind of life unfolds during a single day. At the crack of dawn the ferryman opens his eyes to find an impatient businessman nudging him with his foot. The businessman demands they cross the river. Now. Right away. Not a minute to spare. The ferryman rises and offers tea and scones. The businessman says he has no time for tea and scones. He needs to reach the other side. Progress and profits depend on it. The ferryman understands. Before becoming a simple ferryman he had been a striver bristling with ambition, always angling to close the next deal. He had manipulated and deceived to accomplish his aims. He had believed material wealth the only true measure of success. But he cannot just yet haul the businessman across the river. He must wait for the old woman. The old woman is sick and needs to see the doctor on the other side. The Ferryman is an amusing and tender tale that attempts to shine a wide light on what might actually matter in life. Yes, we have our necessities: food and shelter, security and transportation. But what beyond these basics truly has relevance? The ferryman, who has been a humble ferryman for several years by the time we meet him, has identified eight (8) crossings that have changed his life, he thinks, for the better. By better the ferryman means richer, deeper, less stressful, more joyful. The crossings have civilized the ferryman. Benevolence in all things, the ferryman has come to believe, is the surest way to peace of mind. And really what greater gift can we bestow upon ourselves than a quiet and contented mind? Come ride the ferry with the ferryman. It’s a pleasant, scenic journey filled with small gifts, interesting characters, and boundless miracles. The Ferryman is a tale of self discovery you will read over and over as your own journey passes back and forth across the river of life. Thomas William Simpson is the author of such diverse novels as The Immortal, Full Moon Over America, The Fingerprints of Armless Mike, and This Way Madness Lies. His curiosity for the human condition, as evidenced in The Ferryman, knows no bounds.

Simpson is a very talented and well known author with an impressive resume with books, such as The Caretaker, The Hancock Boys, This Way Madness Lies  and The Editor, that have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and have garnered widespread critical acclaim.  It has been a pleasure working with Mr. Simpson and an honor to have my artwork on the cover of his book.  Please check out his website, Simpson Books,  which is very informative on his writings and his career journey.

If you would like to purchase The Ferryman, click here or on the book cover above to be taken to its Amazon page.

If you would like to see the original painting for this cover, it is currently at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA as part of Traveler, my solo show opening this coming Friday.  It is a modest sized painting, only 5″ by 9″ on paper.  Stop in and see it.

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