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Archive for the ‘Recent Paintings’ Category

Island of Souls

Posted in At the Movies, Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , , , , , , on April 19, 2013| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- Island of Souls  Called Island of Souls, this painting, 16″ by 26″ on paper, uses the isolation of an island as its central theme.  I am not sure if my photography on this particular piece accurately captures the true color and feel of this piece so I may have to re-shoot this.  But this image does get most of what is important so I will get on with it.

The idea of an island has always intrigued me.  I think it comes from the paradox of perception that comes with them.  The isolation offers escape and safe haven from the outer world on one hand but at the same time has a sense of captivity and limitation on the other.  As an artist my working life is spent on such an island, either safely ensconced in the quiet safety of my studio or trapped in a self-made prison, depending on your viewpoint.

A lot of artists have trouble with this isolation but for me it has always been preferable.  I always think of  the film Papillon where inmate Louis Dega, played by Dustin Hoffman, finally accepts and adapts to his fate on Devil’s Island, the penal colony off the coast of French Guiana.  He eventually lives in a little hut away from the others and lives a quiet and simple life until the end of his life there.  I have always thought that , outside it being forced upon him as punishment, it was an existence to which  many  people might aspire, living on a tropical island with little to worry about from the outside world.

Maybe that’s what I see here.  I suppose it could be seen as some sort of a prison with the cluster of huts on a rocky island with a dock and no visible boat.  I tend to see it in more aspirational terms, as a place of peace with a sense of tranquility in the colors of this piece that complements this reading of this picture for me.

One man’s penal colony is another man’s paradise.

Here’s a song of the same name from Sting.  It’s from his 1991 album The Soul Cages and uses the island as a dreamed of place of escape for the boat builders of Newcastle as they toil over the great ships that they will never sail on.

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Dark Crossing

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on April 14, 2013| 1 Comment »

GC Myers 2013“A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.”   

-Leonardo Da Vinci

 

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I’ve been working on a number of pieces lately that start on a black base of paint, rising from the darkness as each subsequent layer adds more and more light.  I still think of this additive  process as being a form of sculpture, one that starts with a flat surface and builds out in contours that give it definition and texture.  Each layer of paint is like adding clay to the supporting armature of the sculpture.  It’s a process that is hard to pull away from when I immerse myself in it. There’s something about seeing the colors grow more and more vibrant on the surface that becomes mesmerizing.  I guess that’s why I often refer to this work as obsessionism.

This small experiment, a 10″ by 12″ piece on paper,  is in this vein.   It’s one of those pieces that I’m just not sure about because I like it but I’m not sure if I like it for what it is or for the experience, the obsession of the moment in painting it.  Like a parent looking at something their child has done and wondering if they like it because it is truly good or simply because it was done by their child, their flesh and blood.  

Sometimes I can finish a piece and it instantly stands apart and on its own, complete and independent.  Ready to move on like a young person proclaiming their emancipation from their parents.   Other times, there are pieces that cling closer to me, perhaps too attached to yet  stand on their own, at least in my eyes.  Because I am unsure, I become more protective of these pieces because they do feel more personal, more of me.  

It’s a hard thing to describe, this uncertainty in a piece, especially when it feels objectively right.  Can a parent ever fully take out their own subjective view of their offspring and see them objectively as they really are?

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Guiding Lights

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged on April 11, 2013| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- Guiding Lights This is a new painting, a 20″ by 24″ canvas, that I call Guiding Lights.  I showed the image yesterday on my Facebook page but didn’t have a chance to write much about it.  The title come from the the triangulated trio of elements that dominate this piece’s center– the lighthouse, the sun and the Red Tree.  Each represents the forms of guidance available to us as we navigate through life.

The lighthouse symbolizes how others move us along.  Mentors, teachers, family and friends who try to shed light on our path so that we may stay safe and  keep us from the dangers that lie ahead.

The sun represents the spiritual here, the guidance that many seek from their belief in a greater, omnipresent power.

The Red Tree in this painting  is a symbol for the instinctual, inborn guidance that we all possess to some degree.  It is our conscience, our intuition, our moral compass– each weighing our every move forward.

There is a path that tees near the bottom of this scene, in one direction heading right back into the greater mass of  red-roofed houses and the other heading out path edge of the houses where it becomes less crowded.  The path is isolated with only the guides I mentioned above  along for the journey.  This reminds me of something that I read a while ago, although I can’t exactly remember where it was or who wrote it at this early hour.  It was someone writing specifically about artists although I feel it applies to any endeavor.

The author wrote that in the development of an artist there comes a point where in order to reach their fullest potential, to find that singular voice, an artist has to be brave enough to move beyond their friends and peers.  They must leave them behind and move on alone.  It’s a vital step but a difficult one that most are not willing to take, if they ever even realize there is a choice to be made.

I think that’s what I see in this piece– the  journey for a personal vision and growth.

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Observers

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on April 2, 2013| 9 Comments »

GC Myers- Observers smallThis is a new painting that is called Observers, which is also the name of my upcoming June show at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.  It’s a triptych that measures 24″ by 48″ and is on a birch panel.  Because I’m feeling a bit under the weather, I am not going to write much on this piece today.  I’ll reserve that for another time when I’m a little more on my game.  But I did want to show this painting today, to get some feedback on it.

Have at it…

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Larger Than Life

Posted in Influences, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on March 28, 2013| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Larger Than LifeI am currently working on a new body of work for my annual June show at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.   I am calling this year’s exhibit,  my fourteenth solo show there,  Observers, and the piece shown here is one of the pieces that will make up the show.

This painting, a 16″ by 26″ piece on paper, is called Larger Than Life.  It’s a continuation of the Red Roof landscapes that I have been showing on this blog lately.  This piece was another that came from my early morning session in the studio when I had several images come to mind during a sleepless night.  It evolved into something other than what I originally saw but I am actually more pleased with the final result than with the mental image that inspired it.  In my mind I didn’t foresee the little peninsula  that is home to the larger than life Red Tree but, as I worked along, it  just grew out of the mainland on its own.  It seemed a natural fit and I never questioned it and liked the way the causeway broke up the two blocks of color that make up the body of water depicted here.

The Red Tree is, as I pointed out, is larger the life which is obviously the basis of its title.  I really wanted to make it unnaturally large and expressive, its trunk and branches more shrub-like than one might expect from such a large tree.  I had toyed with the idea of a simpler, straighter and more sturdy tree but felt it would alter the entire feel of the piece and wouldn’t provide enough of a counterpoint to the uniformity and order of the houses that were on the opposite shore.  I see the Red Tree here a connector, the thing that binds the everyday, represented by the houses, to the ethereal that the horizon and sun represent here.  It needed to be bigger and more expressive and so it came to be.

I’ve been enjoying  taking in this piece over the last day or so.  The diagonals of color, the running ribbon of the path and the curves of the shoreline keep my eye moving through the piece.  As I said, it is more than I originally saw.

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Higher Ground

Posted in Music, Painting, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , , on March 19, 2013| 4 Comments »

I’m so glad that I know more than I knew then

Gonna keep on trying

Till reach my highest ground

GC Myers-Higher Ground

I wrote that when I was visited  last week in my studio by a film crew from WSKG  that they had taped me working on a painting in its early stages.  The painting above is the final version of that piece.  It’s a 20″ by 40″ canvas that I am calling Higher Ground, a title somewhat borrowed from the Stevie Wonder song of the same name quoted above.

This piece has a couple of different elements than most of my work.  For instance, the rocky walls of the canal/river as well as the rocky outcropping of the rise on which the Red Tree stand.  There’s also an orchard in the lower right corner that I use sparingly in these pieces.  I have sometimes said that these paintings are often not really about the Red Tree at all but are more about the mood created by the combinations of color and form.  But the Red Tree is definitely center stage here, everything revolving around and focusing on it.

Higher ground could  represent the safety offered by it  in times of flood or in combat.  For me, I see it as attaining a higher plane of being, or at least aspiring to it as a goal.  Perhaps not the same highest ground that Stevie Wonder is seeking ,  which seems to represent  a  Raptured heaven.  No, I see it more as being free of the the everyday, represented in the anonymous houses below.  To a point that is above hate and anger.  Above envy.  Above spitefulness and deceit.

Above judgement.  I add that because I don’t see the Red Tree as looking down on those house below it here. Rather,  I see it looking upward and outward.  And higher ground affords that better view…

Here’s the song from Stevie Wonder.  Great groove to start a day.

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Redemption Bay

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on March 15, 2013| 6 Comments »

GC Myers 2013- Redemption BayEarly last week, I wrote about spending several hours working on a piece that seemed to go nowhere, had no rhythm or flow.  I was trying to force things that just weren’t there and the whole thing gave me an anxious feeling.   I  decided to count  it as a momentary setback and painted it over, erasing the failure and creating a clean slate on which to build something new .  I then went to work, trying to quiet my mind and letting the piece grow bit by bit.

This is what has emerged.

I am temporarily calling this painting, a 36″ by 36″ canvas, Redemption Bay.  It’s obviously named for the effort in reversing a failure but the name may fit in other ways, as well.  I’m still reading it and trying to decipher exactly what it says to me.  I can see many themes in it.  Cycle of life, external guidance and so on.

It has the flow and rhythm that was missing in the first attempt, elements meshing together to create a movement that takes the eye through and into the piece.  It’s exactly what I was trying to force in the failed attempt and came once I let the piece go on its own.   It’s been my experience that my best work comes when I trust   instincts over intellect.  I’m going to spend some time with this piece and see how it grows on me now.

So far, so good.

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High Sign

Posted in Influences, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on March 10, 2013| 2 Comments »

GC Myers -High Sign Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I think I understand what Emerson is getting at with these words.  I know that when I look around I often see juxtapositions of natural elements– trees and stone and water and sky– which move me in ways that I can never fully explain.  Some fill me with inspiration.  Some with a sense of wonder  and great calmness.  Peaceful unity with the world.  And, with some, a sense of foreboding, a dread of the inevitable valleys that accompany all peaks.  Even those scenes which make me feel as being “in the moment” resonate because they have some underlying  connection to a deeper strand of thought or being.

I think it’s this sense of this symbology that fills in some of the gaps in my work, that gives it a little more depth than the surface offers.  I know that it is this greater sense of being that I am trying to capture in my work, hoping that perhaps others who feel this same type of  innate symbolism in the natural world  somehow sense it and connect with it.

I think this newer piece, High Sign (6″ by 10″ on paper), is a good example of this.  It is a simple scene but, for me, is filled with symbolism.  Some is obvious and some subtle.   The tree and it’s position on the mound against the graded sky is obvious as is the road that winds through.  Less obvious are the upward pointing arrows of the houses’ peaks and the light and shadows of their walls.

The odd thing is that it’s not something I think about when I am painting the piece.  It’s all about achieving a sense of rightness in each move in the painting.  Each move is  step forward and if I can maintain  that feeling of rightness throughout the process, generally the painting will have this added depth, this layer of symbolism.  It comes of its own accord, naturally.   And I guess that the way it should be.

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Bluefire

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged on February 22, 2013| 10 Comments »

GC Myers- BluefireHere’s a new painting, a 10″ by 20″ canvas,  that I am calling Bluefire.   I don’t know if the title refers to the blue sun rising over the distant ridge or if it refers to the hot contrast of the red tree to the predominately blue environment.  It doesn’t really matter  because the title feels right, feels at home in this painting.  At least, it does this morning.

Bluefire also sounds like a gem of some sort and the color of this piece definitely has a gem-like quality, sapphire  and topaz and tourmaline green.  It feels as much like a jeweled object as it does a simple painting, which I like.  I have spoken a number of times of the idea of the painting being viewed in multiple ways, as a pure object in itself as well as a representation of something emotion-based on its surface.   This seems to fit this idea.

I also like the paradox of  the warmth of this piece despite the blue overtone of the whole.  Blue is often portrayed as a cool color but sometimes that doesn’t hold completely true.  I think this is one good example of warmth in blue.  And I think it’s this going against what is the norm that I like about Bluefire.  The blues are warm and the sun is blue but it somehow doesn’t matter.  It registers true to me and that is the test that counts.

Now, whether others see and accept it in those terms is another matter.

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Work In Progress/ Just About There

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , on February 11, 2013| 11 Comments »

GC Myers WIP- Final Stages 2013I am getting closer to completion on the piece that I have been showing over the last week here, a 24″ by 48″ canvas.  After taking the photo shown here, I was able to spot several areas that need small touches to bring it to a possible finish.

The painting has changed considerably since the last stage  I showed of it in the prior post.  The everpresent Red Tree has appeared on a rise overlooking the lake.  The sky and sun (or is it a moon?) have unified in color.  The trees and fields have taken on more color which gives them shape and depth.   The lake that was last seen as a black pool has transformed into a surface of teeming blue brushstrokes.

It may not be very obvious in these photos but I lightened the most distant hills which moved the horizon deeper into the picture and gave the whole piece more depth.  It’s one of those things that doesn’t register when you first look at the painting.  You see the closer images – the lake, the houses, the graveyard, the bridge and roads– or maybe you focus on the sun/moon and the Red Tree stretching up into the sky.  Those are all important elements that make the painting vibrant and certainly are the stars of the show.  But, for me, it’s this extra perception of depth beyond the scene that gives the piece a real sense of wholeness.  This depth attaches the fantastic to reality.

GC Myers WIP Detail 2I spoke in the last post about the graveyard which is a new element for me in my  landscape paintings.  Another new element is located in the area around the covered bridge.  Now, I have used bridges  a number of times in my work and even a few covered bridges have popped up so it’s not that.  It’s the simplified gas station, a one-pumper that recalls rural gas stations of the past where the pump was just off the shoulder of the road.  I don’t know how that came to be in this painting except to say that I wanted a strong distinct element that would balance the graveyard and like the way it breaks up the space in which it is located.  Plus, the addition of the it and the graveyard give this piece a sense of real place, of community, for me.

There is a lot for me to like in this piece.  It’s as strong  and appealing as I had hoped it might be, with great rhythm and flow through its many elements that gives it a sense of harmony.  I had mentioned that I might use this piece for a Name That Painting contest but now I’m not so sure.  I have a title in mind and am strongly leaning toward using it, although I want to mull it over.  However, I would love to hear any other titles you might have in mind.

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