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Archive for the ‘Recent Paintings’ Category

Apolitical Blues

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 4, 2014| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers-Apolitical BluesI’ve been getting a small group of work ready for a show that opens next week  in Penn Yan, NY, which sits at the northern end of beautiful Keuka Lake in the Finger Lakes.  The Arts Center of Yates County holds several shows a year in their Flick Gallery, which is a beautiful space .on the city’s Main Street.   I have been invited to be a featured artist in their upcoming show, Earthworks, which runs from May 9 to June 16.  Normally, I would not try to fit in a small show only a month before a major exhibit such as next month’s show at the Principle Gallery but after seeing the gallery and speaking with their director, Kris Pearson, I was impressed and decided to try to squeeze it in a crowded schedule.  I also thought it might serve as  nice introduction to people of the region who might not be familiar with my work or with the West End Gallery in Corning, hoping they might travel down for my show there in July.

The show consists of a mix of new and recent pieces that  I feel are representative of my body of work.  There are a couple of Archaeology paintings, a few Red Roofs and my signature Red Tree, of course.  The piece shown here on the left is a small new painting, 2″ by 8″ on paper, that I call Apolitical Blues, after the old Little Feat song of the same name.  It’s a simple blues with very simple lyrics–Well my telephone was ringing /And they told me it was Chairman Mao /I don’t care who it is /I just don’t wanna talk to him now —  but with the state of current politics, the idea of being turned off and tuned out to the noise of it all seemed to fit with the solitary figure in this piece, away from the chaos and constant talk of the world.

Being Sunday morning, it seems appropriate that I share Little Feat‘s song with you.  This is a live version that was recorded at the Rainbow Theatre in London in 1977 for their live album Waiting for Columbus, which is considered by critics as one of the greatest live albums in rock history.  I know that it has been one of my favorites since it came out in 1978, a year before lead singer  Lowell George died.  This version also features famed British guitarist Mick Taylor who had formerly played on some of the Rolling Stones iconic albums of the early 70’s.  It’s a great way to open your eyes on a Sunday morning in May.

Have a great day!

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The Way of the Master

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on May 2, 2014| 6 Comments »

“There is one single thread binding my way together…the way of the Master consists in doing one’s best…that is all.”

– Confucius 

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GC Myers- The Way of the Master

I originally had a different title in mind for this new painting,which is 24″ by 36″ on canvas.  I saw it as being about the end of a journey, about coming to a point that marked the highest level of emotional  and spiritual development.  But then I remembered this quote from Confucius and it had immediate resonance.

It all comes down to effort in the end.   Everything that comes to us, everything we desire and value,  ultimately depends on the amount of effort we choose to put forth.  Things done half-heartedly and with little attention never prosper or develop.   Those things you take for granted never grow into something more.  They only diminish with less attention.  You can witness  this in every aspect of your life. I know I can see it in my own.  Everything I value– my marriage, my work and my peace of mind– requires hard work  and maintenance, my very best effort.

This full effort ultimately leads to a deeper sense of connection with those things we value, emotionally and spiritually,  and I suppose that’s what this piece signifies for me.  I believe that any thinking person wants to reach their highest point of development, wants mastery over their own physical and spiritual life.  This painting reminds me that it is obtainable if I am willing to give my very best.

As Confucius says: and that is all.

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Closer to the Center

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , , on April 28, 2014| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- Close to the CenterHere’s another new piece, a 16″ by 20″ canvas that I am calling Closer to the Center for the moment.  I came to that title because when it seemed to me that the trail which runs along a ridge above the valley reminded me of  the path through a labyrinth or a maze  where the person  moving along the trail that winds in and out  is often taken to points where they are so tantalizingly close to the destination that they feel their journey is almost complete. But  they have, in fact,  quite a journey ahead of them.

That’s what this piece brought to mind for me, the light and richness of the valley acting as a destination, a final point.  You can continue on the ridge path with the  lush valley still in sight or you can opt to take  another path that may take you further from the center but will bring you to your intended destination sooner.  Or it may take you to another point altogether, one that you never envisioned  from the trail.  That is the decision that must be made– which path do you follow?

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Strata

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on April 24, 2014| 1 Comment »

Strata smI’ve been working on a new group of pieces that incorporate the layered  elements, the subterranean strata,  from my Archaeology series. I decided to forego the field of artifacts that mark the Archaeology work, instead focusing on the color and  organic lines of the layers and the geometry of the boulders and stones between them.  These layers and forms take on an abstract sense that really appeals to me, especially when countered against the representational feel of the surface elements– the Red Tree and the sun/moon.

For me, the resulting image takes on a really contemplative feel.  Maybe it’s the idea of seeing  a cross-section of the immense changes that time brings, reminding me of our own relative smallness in the larger picture.  Any one of those layers, perhaps the thinnest ones,  could represent our time on this planet.  It takes away a lot of the hubris and bluster of man and reduces it to an organic line.

And in the end, life still goes on in the form of the Red Tree.  It may not be the human form that we hope for but it is life, nonetheless.

Life persists.

And even without us, the human race, that in itself is comforting.  That is,  if you believe that there is a unity and a force that connects us to all living things, great and small.  In that sense, we might still be around to look upon that sun/moon many, many millennia from this moment.  And I find that sort of comfort, both humbling and reassuring,  in this series of layers and color.

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Battling Indifference

Posted in Influences, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on April 19, 2014| 7 Comments »

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”

-Elie Wiesel

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GC Myers Memory of Night sm

I’ve been sitting here for quite some time now, staring at the quote above from Elie Wiesel.  I had planned on writing about how my work evolved as a response to the indifference of others but now, looking at those words and putting them into the context of  Wiesel’s experience, I feel a bit foolish.  Wiesel, who had survived the Holocaust, was eyewitness to indifference on a grand scale, from those who were complicit or those who did not raise their voices in protest even though they knew what was happening to the personal indifference shown by his Nazi guards, as they turned a blind eye to the suffering and inhumanity directly before them on a daily basis, treating them as though they were nothing at all.

The indifference of which he speaks is that which looks past you without  any regard for your humanity. Or your existence, for that matter.  It is this failure to engage, this failure to allow our empathy to take hold and guide us,  that grants permission for the great suffering that takes place throughout our world.

So you can see where writing about showing a picture as a symbolic battle against indifference might seem a bit trivial.  It certainly does to me.  But I do see in it a microcosm of the wider implications.  We all want our humanity, our existence, recognized and for me this was a small way of  raising my voice to be heard.

When I first started showing my work I was coming off of a period where I was at my lowest point for quite some time.  I felt absolutely voiceless and barely visible in the world, dispossessed in many ways.  In art I found a way to finally express an inner voice, my real humanity,  that others could see and react to.  So when my first opportunity to display my work came, at the West End Gallery in 1995, I went to the show with great trepidation.  For some, it was just a show of  some nice paintings by some nice folks.  For me, it was a test of my existence.

It was interesting as I stood off to the side, watching as people walked about the space.  It was elating when someone stopped and looked at my small pieces.  But that  feeling of momentary glee was overwhelmed by the indifference shown by those who walked by with hardly a glance.  That crushed me.  I would have rather they had stopped and spit at the wall than merely walk by dismissively.  That, at least, would have made me feel heard.

Don’t get me wrong here– some people who are not moved by a painting walking by it without a glance are not Nazis.  I held no ill will toward them, even at that moment.  I knew that I was the one who had placed so much importance on this moment, not them.  They had no idea that they were playing part to an existential  crisis.  Now, I am even a bit grateful for their indifference that night because it made me vow that I would paint bolder, that I would make my voice be heard.  Without that indifference I might have settled and not continued forward on my path.

But in this case, I knew that it was up to me to overcome their indifference.

Again, please excuse my use of Mr. Wiesel’s quote here.  We all want to be heard, to be recognized on the basic levels for our own existence, our own individual selves. But too often, we all show indifference that takes that away from others, including those that we love.  We all need to listen and hear, to look and see, to express our empathy with those we encounter.  Maybe in these small ways the greater effects of indifference of which Elie Wiesel spoke can be somehow avoided.

It’s a hope.

The painting at the top is a new piece that I call Memory of Night, inspired by Wiesel’s book, Night.

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Taking a Different Perspective

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on April 17, 2014| 5 Comments »

GC Myers- April 2014This is a new painting, a still untitled 12″ by 12″ canvas. Normally when I look at such a piece I see in it something hopeful, forward looking toward a distant horizon.  Destiny bound.  But while I was looking at this piece, absorbing it and trying to take in its feeling, something I had read at some point came to mind.  I can’t remember who said it but the gist of it was that you can’t connect the dots of destiny by looking forward– you can only connect them by looking backwards.

In other words, you can’t plan your destiny.  But you can see how you arrived where you are.

This idea of connecting the dots by looking backwards was no stranger to me.  That was the central appeal of  genealogy for me, being able to find the trail that brought us to where we are at this moment.  To see that path in some sort of view that takes what might be very mundane lives when seen individually and places them in a grand and sweeping perspective.  Doing this made me feel connected with my humanity, able to see that I was not some sort of alienated being  but was a part of that sweeping vision.  Would I be a noteworthy part?  That I could not tell.

As it was said, you can’t plan your destiny.

So looking at this piece with this thought in mind, I no longer see it forward looking.  I view it as the perspective of someone who has turned around on the trail and is looking back at from where they came.  And there’s a certain synchronicity in this.  The sun and the water represent our evolutionary beginnings and the path, our trail though the ages.

Strangely, it doesn’t lose any of its hopefulness by taking on this perspective.  In fact, I now find it comforting from this perspective, that I have a purpose and responsibility as the recipient of a task that must be carried forward, at least for my short stint here on the trail.

The dots are connected and now I can look ahead…

 

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Into the Pure Land

Posted in Influences, Motivation, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , on April 12, 2014| 5 Comments »

GC Myers- Into the Pure Land smI’ve had this newer painting in the studio for a few weeks now and it has become one of those pieces where my eyes often come to rest.  That’s something I wasn’t so sure would be the case when I was painting it.  In the earliest stages when I compose the piece by blocking in the forms with a red oxide paint, it felt stiff and lifeless.  This is not necessarily strange at this point in my process but this piece felt even more so.  But with each change in the surface, each layer of paint added, it gained life and depth.

By the its finish, it was instantly drawing me inward.  It had such a meditative effect that I began to think of it in terms of mantras and focal points.  But ultimately, I began to see it as an endpoint, a desired place of attainment.  As a result, I settled on Into the Pure Land as a title for this 10″ by 20″ piece.

In some forms of Buddhism, there are seven levels of heaven, whose name takes on a different meaning than the one denoting paradise that we often associate with the word heaven.  Their heavens are those realms of cyclical existence where a being is reincarnated time after time, hopefully gaining wisdom with each incarnation.  If the being is able to gain total enlightenment, nirvana,  he moves beyond the heavens and into the Pure Lands, which are the eternal abodes of the Buddhas.  This would be closer to the traditional heaven that most likely comes to mind.

This piece has that feel for me, an idyllic place attained by working to pass  through many levels, represented here by the path passing through the layers in the landscape’s foreground.  The radiating bands in the sky represent the eternal pull forward through these layers, almost as a visual mantra that focuses the attention on reaching the endpoint of enlightenment, which I see here as the sun over the horizon.

Mind you, this is only my simplistic take on the concepts of a religion.  The five cent version.  But these terms strike a chord in me when I look into this painting.  Maybe that is my response alone, my personal reaction to my own expression.  For others, it might be a painting that makes them feel a little joy or just an attractive piece with a graphic feel.  Or it just might not be their cup of tea, period.  All are fine with me.  I’m just thinking about entering into that pure land…

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Of Infinite Worth

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on April 8, 2014| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- Of Infinite WorthEvery situation– nay, every moment– is of infinite worth, for it is the representative of a whole eternity.

— Goethe, 1823

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These words from Goethe give me pause.  I have often thought that each moment, even those multitudes of moments which we seem to throw away like so much trash, has some unique quality that we may not recognize or understand in that moment.

Filled with possibility of discovery and wonder.  Perhaps it is the revelation of a whole eternity captured and represented in that moment, as Goethe suggests.

I suppose the trick then is to give each moment, each situation, the proper reverence and joy it deserves.  A deeper understanding and sense of purpose is offered in return.

Of course, this is the goal.  There will be many moments thrown away, disposed in negative emotions and behaviors.  But if we just try to be aware of the weight of each moment at some point in each day, perhaps it will become habit.  Part of our make-up.

And that’s what I see in this painting, 7″ by 10″ on paper, that I am calling Of Infinite Worth, appropriating the title from Goethe’s quote.  We move on a path that winds forward, taking us  in and out of view of the horizon. Eventually, it brings us to a higher elevation, above distraction, that offers us a clear view of what is ahead.  Perhaps it is a moment filled with eternity or simply a moment to carry with us as we continue ahead.

I could blather on a little more here but I think I should stop and let the image speak for itself.  After all,  everyone might not be looking for eternity this morning.

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Harvest Moon

Posted in Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , , , , on March 30, 2014| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Traveler- 2014I don’t know if this painting is exactly right for the title of this post or this song.  But in the early morning light it has a moonish glow in its center, the gray of the shadows muting the brightness of the color at its edges.  For a moment, it looks like it could be a harvest moon.  At least, what I think of as a harvest moon.

The actual title of this 18″ by 48″  painting is Traveler, which is also the title of my June show at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria.  It has been above my fireplace in the studio for a couple of months now and is wearing well with me.  I find myself often looking up at it, letting myself be pulled along that winding path toward that beckoning sun.  Or moon, depending on how I see it at any given moment, such as this morning.

I will write more about this painting and the June show at a later date.  For now, its a dreary, snowy  Sunday morning here and I need some music that will change my mood a bit.  Here’s Neil Young with a version of his always lovely Harvest Moon.

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Phronesis

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on March 25, 2014| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers--Phronesis Phronesis… involves not only the ability to decide how to achieve a certain end, but also the ability to reflect upon and determine good ends consistent with the aim of living well overall.

— Aristotle

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This is a new painting, 8″ by 14″ on paper, that I am calling Phronesis.   It’s a Greek word that the philosopher Aristotle used to differentiate practical wisdom from theoretical philosophy.  Phronesis involves putting gained wisdom into rational, measured action, not merely reflecting upon it.  It is the ability to determine where one wants to be– physically, mentally and spiritually– at a future point and how to achieve that goal.  Phronesis employs  theoretical wisdom  and puts it into rational action.

That’s the five cent version of the concept.  And that’s what I see here.   In a calm fashion, the Red Tree has determined its course, which is to be in unity with a greater universal power or spirit, represented here by the breaking sun and the layers of color in the sky.  It has already recognized the universal truths and is now trying to enact them, trying to become closer to the central truth.

It sounds much more complicated than it might really be. ‘Live lightly’ might just as easily get across what I struggle to say here.  That would probably fit the simple composition of this painting, that  spare elegance which draws me to this piece.  In itself, there is a sort of phronesis taking place, as its painting is an action that takes what little wisdom I have gained and allows me to move a step closer to that same goal shown in it.  Peace and light, really.

Well, enough said.

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