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Archive for the ‘Recent Paintings’ Category

Harmonic One

Posted in Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , , on July 23, 2013| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- Harmonic OneI call this new painting  Harmonic One.  It’s 14″ by 34″ on paper and is part of my Islander show at the West End Gallery in Corning , opening this Friday and running through August.

This is another of those paintings that I start then set aside, waiting for a moment of clarity when the direction of the painting comes through to me.  Sometimes I set them aside because I simply lose momentum, lose the rhythm that is driving the creative force forward and find myself dulling the painting.  Other times, like this, I set them aside because I reach a point, in full rhythm, where I must choose a direction and cannot because I so like what I see before me that I am fearful that I will make a wrong decision which would destroy everything.

The thing that attracted me to this piece and caused me to hesitate when I came to that point on this piece was the color and texture of the sky.  It was chaotic  and rough with bits of differing tones of blues and pale greens.  It was just alive and seemed to dance on the surface.  There is a detail from the sky shown at the bottom of this post.  I knew that to just jump ahead too quickly would diminish the whole effect of that sky.  It required a focal point that would play off of the chaos running through the sky.

Of course, my focal point, my central character,  was going to be the Red Tree.  But it had to have a certain weightiness, a feeling of strength that would create a solidity that would contrast with the foreboding confusion of the sky and bring the whole into some sort of equilibrium.  In short, a tree that would create harmony.

I repeatedly would put this piece on my table and, time after time, I would take it away without touching it.  I just could envision such a harmonizer.  I was at a point where I was beginning to think that I had created a piece that would never go beyond mere potential.  The finished section began top lose vitality and I thought it would go in the heap with other work that never lived up to their possibilities.

But finally, it showed itself in the form that you see.  It transformed the whole thing, bringing a peaceful solidness and force that brings the chaos of the sky into balance.   The title came easily.  In the end, I was tremendously pleased with this painting.  It had everything that  I looked for in my work–depth, texture, color, contrasts, and a feeling of vitality all in a deceptively simple package.  All that I could ask of it…

GC Myers- Harmonic One detail

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Icons on Copper

Posted in Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , on July 21, 2013| 9 Comments »

GC Myers-Icon on Copper

GC Myers-Icon on Copper

I haven’t done it in quite some time, but I have used metal leaf, usually gold or copper, several times in my work over the years.  There is something about using the leaf in a work that transforms a simple composition into one that has greater depth and weight.  This is always surprising to me because the leaf itself flattens the picture plane.  Maybe we have some innate elemental response to the qualities of the metal leaf, its richness and sheen, that goes back through the ages to a time when the use of luxurious metals was the province of sacred art and artifacts.  I know that always comes to my mind when I see metal leaf used in artwork.  I find myself considering the work in a different , more reverential, manner, as though I were considering a religious icon.  I suppose that is why I always describe this work with that term, icon.

GC Myers- Under a Copper Sky

GC Myers- Under a Copper Sky

While I try not to use leaf too often in my work, there are two such pieces in this years show at the West End Gallery, which opens this coming Friday, July 26.  Both are small pieces on paper, both with copper leaf.  I find the warmth of copper leaf appealing and more in line with this work.  The compositions are quiet and very simple , allowing the central figure of the Red Tree to stand starkly against the elegant weight of the copper.  This juxtaposition without a lot of additional elements and detail allows the tree and the copper leaf to shine in harmony.

The piece shown above, an 8″ by 8″ image,  is simply titled Icon on Copper .  The painting here on the left is a bit smaller at 4′ by 6.5″ and is also simply titled Under a Copper Sky.  They are both at the gallery now for the show, Islander, which runs until August 30.

 

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The Song We Carry

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , , , , on July 17, 2013| 4 Comments »

GCMyers 2013- The Song We Carry smWe all carry a lot of baggage with us on our journey through this life.  It’s a rare moment when we find ourselves free from all the  traces from the past that we lug along– all the snippets of conversations, faces, song melodies and lyrics, pictures, smells, film clips and everything else we have input into the hard drive of our mind is always whirring around.  I know that I will sometimes pull up some fragment from the past and wonder how I was still holding on to this piece of information.  It might be the name of someone that I barely knew forty or fifty years before.  Somehow it hangs on and occasionally pops out, confounding me with the idea that this seemingly useless bit of data is taking up space that could be occupied by truly meaningful information.

Like old Popeye cartoons. ( The one with Olive Oyl singing  What We All Need is Brotherly Love runs on a loop in my head)

Or the year that Humphrey Bogart died.(1957)

Or the name of the book that influenced the original Superman comic. ( It was Philip Wylie‘s Gladiator— an interesting read, by the way.)

But somehow,  despite and because of all this detritus, we  emerge in some individual form.

A single distilled version of everything that we take in.

A single voice.  One song.

I guess that is how I would characterize the thought behind the painting at the top, The Song We Carry.  It’s 7″ by 11″  on paper and is going to the West End Gallery for my upcoming show.

Now here’s a little Popeye along with Wilco.  It’s a video for Wilco’s  Dawned on Me from last year and it features the first hand-drawn Popeye cartoon in over 30 years.  I can’t remember if Olive Oyl danced like this in my memory but now I will.  The data has been entered.

 

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This Perfect World

Posted in Opinion, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on July 16, 2013| 6 Comments »

GC Myers- This Perfect World smThis is a new painting that is part of my annual show at the West End Gallery opening next Friday, July 26.  This 24″ by 30″ canvas is titled This Perfect World.  It’s a painting that has taken a while to come around and has turned into one of my favorites, probably because of the way it has evolved.

This is one of those pieces that started quickly, back in January or February,  then came to a standstill, losing all momentum.  I would pick it up every few days and look at it but I could see nothing.  The surface seemed flat and dull and nothing made me want to even attempt to push ahead.  Finally, a couple of weeks back, I decided it was time to move on this painting.  It would rise or fall but it would no longer linger in the shadows of the studio.

I quickly heightened the colors of the landscape in the foreground and suddenly the whole thing jumped to life.  Everything in the composition contrasted off of this small change dramatically, taking away the dullness and building depth.  Even though I have seen this on numerous occasions, it still shocks me when this transformation occurs so quickly.  It creates that sense of excitement that I am looking for myself in all of my work, that feeling that has me anxious to push forward so that I can see the ending.  Like an impatient reader who goes to the end of a book to see how it all turns out.

And soon it was done.  So quickly it came, a final touch here and the transformation from lifeless surface to a vibrant entity is complete.  I wish I could know exactly  where this transformation occurs, at what point in my process does it jump to life.  But that remains a mystery to me.  Perhaps as it should.

Looking at it afterwards, there is a sense of fullness and rightness in the piece.  That is where the title comes in to play.  The natural world is a perfect thing.  By that I mean that there is no room for indecision or regret over every mistake.  Everything simply is.

Each moment is the only possible result of all circumstances that have taken place before that moment.  Each moment perfectly fits the setting that has been created for it. Perfect.

Now, though I invoke the word here, I am not looking for it in my representations of  this natural perfection.  I  think the imperfections in a piece  display the human element in the natural world.  And this painting is a good example of it.  There are visible edges in the sky where the pigment set before I lifted it from the surface.  There are bits of bristle from my brush (and maybe a little hair from my head ?)  in the paint.  There are tiny dark spatters of paint here and there.  All of these flaws, as some may call them, are perfect to me.  When I take in the painting as a whole, I don’t see imperfections.  I see the rightness of the piece, its perfection in the moment.  Those human indicators simply give it depth for me, let me know that I was in that moment.

And that is as perfect as it can be for me…

 

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Mirrors and Windows

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , on July 14, 2013| 7 Comments »

GC Myers-Mirrors and Windows

Maturity is that time when the mirrors in our mind turn to windows and instead of seeing the reflection of ourselves we see others.

–Anonymous

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This is a new piece for my West End Gallery show, Islander, that opens on July 26th.  I am calling this  painting, a 12″ by 36″ canvas, Mirrors and Windows.

It didn’t start with this title or the quote cited above in mind but as it progressed the lakes and sun/moon (your choice, although I am personally seeing a sun here) began to remind me of mirrors and the blocks of the  field reminded me of windows.  The terrain took on a pop or cartoon-like quality as though I were looking at a wavy  building  with curving windows and mirrors attached to its side.  The vibrant colors really accentuated this feeling.

I found myself looking at this piece quite often in the studio, trying to ascertain what it was that was pulling me in.  As I looked, I began to be more aware of the road running through which signified to me our life’s journey.  We spend our lives looking in mirrors and out windows, living in reflections of ourselves and the outer world.

There must be some perfect balance in this.  Somewhere.  Somehow.  And maybe that is what the quote at the top here infers, that we reach a point where we know who and what we are and turn away from mirrors and begin to look for windows in which we can expand our vision of the outer world and gain greater wisdom.

Perhaps this message is too much to ask from a painting that at first speaks with the look of a comic book.  I guess you should judge a book by the cover…

 

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Endymion

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on July 9, 2013| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Endymion This is a new painting that is part of my upcoming exhibit, Islander,  at the West End Gallery which opens on July 26th. It is a 20″ by 24″ canvas titled Endymion,  somewhat based on the mythic character of that name.  There are many conflicting myths as far as Endymion is concerned but the basic myth is that he was a mortal, some having either a king or a shepherd,   who was in  love with the Moon, who because of his beauty returned his love.  Some myths have Endymion in an endless state of sleep as either punishment or reward from Zeus, some with his eyes wide open as he slept but all maintain the love between him and the Moon.

The Romantic poet  John Keats wrote a poem titled Endymion that tells his version of the myth.  It begins with the well known line: A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.  My favorite line, and one that I think speaks to this painting, comes later in that first stanza: Some shape of beauty moves away the pall  from our dark spirits.

Whatever the myth behind the poem or the title of this painting, there is a sleepy hypnotic quality to this piece and there is a real sense of attraction and longing between the Red Tree and the Moon here.  I see the Moon as the unattainable ethereal and the Red Roofed houses and farms as being the temporal reality with the Red Tree hovering somewhere in between, part of the Earth yet longing for the sky.

Well, at least that’s how I see it…

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“Islander”

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on July 5, 2013| 2 Comments »

GC Myers Post Card 350 small

My annual show at the West End Gallery opens in three weeks, on July 26th.  This year’s show is titled Islander.  Below is a short statement that I wrote for this show:

 

I am an islander. 

But I don’t live on an island. Never have and probably never will. 

No, my island is a metaphorical place, one that exists in the creative ether of my mind. An island that is completely apart from and immune to the outer world that exists across the deep surrounding waters. Self-sustaining and self-ruled, a blank slate on which I can create my own reality. 

It’s a place free from the ire and pettiness of others. Free of strife and injustice. and filled with the quiet of solitude. Filled with color, warmth and emotion. 

An island of creation and peace. 

But there is a paradox in being an islander. While trying to remain separate, it becomes abundantly clear that we can never really exist as totally independent from the outer world. Actually, to the islander those bonds to the outside world become even more apparent and important. The isolation only serves to heighten our recognition of our inclusion and connection to the world. You begin to recognize them as lifelines, bringing those things to the island that you cannot create in yourself. 

Try as one might, one can never live in isolation from their own humanity. I think the best you can do is to create an island that you can visit periodically to revitalize yourself. And that’s what I believe I see in the work for this show– paintings that take me away for a short while from the outer world and place me on that peaceful island. 

For that short time, I am truly an islander.

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No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne

Meditation XVII, 1624

 

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“Observers” Opening Tonight

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on June 7, 2013| 8 Comments »

I am in Virginia today for tonight’s opening at the Principle Gallery.  I thought for today that I would just show a few of the images from this show that have shown here over the last few months.  They look much better in person so, if you can make it, definitely stop in and take a look.  Hope to see you there!

GC Myers-Higher Ground GC Myers- Not Quite an Island GC Myers- Larger Than Life GC Myers- Guiding Lights GC Myers- Island of Souls GC Myers- Destiny Awaits GC Myers- Strands

GC Myers- Part of the Pattern

GC Myers- Part of the Pattern

GC Myers 2013 Ascent of Man GC Myers Life Spiral 2013 sm Diamond sm GC Myers- The Bridge GC Myers- Observers frm sm GC Myers- A Solemn Understanding sm gc-myers-internal-landscape-2012

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Samadhi

Posted in Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , on June 4, 2013| 3 Comments »

9913-181 Samadhi smThis new painting, a thin slice at 4″ by 24″ on paper,  is called Samadhi and is part of my show, Observers, that opens Friday at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.  It was one of those pieces that I start then somehow lose its momentum during the process.  The first movements  come easily and a flow is developing and it seems as though it will soon reveal its true self.  Then suddenly it’s gone.  There is no obvious next move  and the surface gives me no hints, has no voice for the time being.   Even the marks that are made have lost all animation, seeming lifeless.  All I can do is put it aside with the hope that at some point it would call out and want to emerge fully realized.

And that is how this piece evolved.  It shined than dulled then suddenly became energized once more.  The end result seems effortless and graceful but coming to this end was a struggle to clear the mind so that it might come through.

I suppose that is where the title, Samadhi, comes in.  Samadhi is a Hindu/ Buddhist  term that represents a meditative one-mindedness, a connection with the ultimate reality of things.  A union with the divine.

Now, I am not a Buddhist or schooled in Eastern religion so I am not going into a long explanation here.  It’s a word that describes  a fragile, fleeting state of being, one that suddenly appears for those who have the ability to release the binders of self  and enter a meditative state where they are not in the moment but are the moment, bound with everything around them and beyond.

It seems so easy but  becomes impossible with too much effort, too much struggle.

And that is what I saw with this painting.  I struggled with it and it became more and more distant and alien.  But I set it aside and came back with a clear mind and no expectation.  It would be what it would be.  And what emerged reflected this attitude.

Calm.  Accepting. Ethereal and always in the present, the continuum of the past and the future connected in the moment.

Samadhi…

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The Internal Landscape

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on June 2, 2013| 2 Comments »

gc-myers-internal-landscape-2012I am really pleased to have this painting, The Internal Landscape,  as part of my show, Observers, which opens at the the Principle Gallery this coming Friday.  If you have read this blog over the last year you may recognize it as it was featured  here as it was in the process of being painted and was the centerpiece of my exhibition last year at the Fenimore Art Museum.  It is a very large painting, my largest by far to date, that measures in at 54″ high by 84″ wide on canvas and can really dominate a space.

I mean that in a good way.

I can’t recall at the moment what I have written or said about this piece in the past so I am just going to write a few lines that are my impressions of it.  Hopefully, some of these line up with those words from the past.

I think of this as a very musical painting, filled with  rhythmic lines and notes of color.  Where some of my paintings are musical  and are songs, some simple, this piece is more symphonic, comprised of multiple elements and themes running through it and coming together in  harmony.  Even the gathering of houses on the right side of the lake remind me of a chorus of voices.  The whole piece sings for me.

Of course, that may just be me.  I am a bit embarrassed in writing about my work in glowing terms but I do like this painting a lot and think it is a culmination of sorts, a milestone on this journey, one that I am really pleased to be able to hang at this show at the Principle Gallery.  I have been showing there for over 16 years  and this is my 14th consecutive annual solo show there so it means a lot to me to be able include this if only to show that the work has been evolving and growing over the years there.

It will be interesting to see it hanging in that space.  Hopefully, it will live up to my words…

 

 

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