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Archive for the ‘Recent Paintings’ Category

Vestige of Memory

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on June 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This is a new painting that is called Vestige of Memory.  It’s a modestly sized piece on paper, a 5″ by 19″ image on paper that frames out at 12″ by 26″.  It’s part of my upcoming show, Facets, at the Principle Gallery.

I’ve always been interested in how our memory functions, how we organize and determine the importance of memories within our minds.  How we determine what remains intact and seemingly vital to us and how we figure out what gets tucked away in some distant corner or simply flies away.   Why do some innocuous moments remain vital in our memories while other more important ones seem to have no place there?

Is there a collective memory among us as a species, ingrained remembrances that give us our instinctual reactions?  If so, do we add to it even now?

Those are just a few of the questions that come to mind when I see this piece.  It’s a simple composition yet it says a lot with the little it possesses.  Perhaps it’s the motion of the tree or the fleeting leaves. Maybe it’s the hints of color in the background sky or the texture there that hints at some unknown entity or knowledge  that we can only see as chaos.   Maybe it’s the simple red chair, signifying a matter of importance, something to be held close.

Or maybe it’s just a chair on a mound as the wind blows a tree. 

It’s all a matter of perception…

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Best Case Scenario

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged on May 28, 2010| 2 Comments »

I’ve been hearing the term worst case scenario  an awful lot lately, certainly in conjunction with the Deepwater Horizon disaster.  We always profess to be prepared and at the ready should the worse happen.  But like so many things, this show of confidence is usually unjustified.  We rarely are able to visualize the worse that could happen in any situation, unable to calculate all the details and factors that might send us careening in directions we never envisioned. 

With this in mind, when I looked  at this painting the first thing that jumped to mind was something quite the opposite.  

It is full of possibility and an idealized optimism.  There is no trace of darkness or hardship on the path in this landscape.  The horizon promises a bright future and seems close and reachable as the red tree urges you to come further along the path.  And even when the path might dip below the next small hiil and the horizon leaves your sight, it is still all light with clear skies above.  No need to fret.

It’s a Best Case Scenario. 

From the moment this painting, which is a 4″ wide by 14″ tall image on paper, began to take shape, it possessed this very positive feel.  Much of my work has an optimistic lean but it usually has a hint of darkness, a reminder of the malevolence that persists in our world.  Maybe this painting’s unfiltered positivism was created out of my own need for refuge and hope after being buffeted by recent news from around the world.   Perhaps its purpose was to remind me that there are best case scenarios out there to counter all the worst cases.  That there are positive goals to which we can aspire.  That there is light.

 If so, it does it job well for me.

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In the Freeflow

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on May 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I’ve been featuring a number of new paintings lately that will be showing at my upcoming exhibit, Facets, at the Principle Gallery.  In this show, there is a wide variety of the motifs that I’ve used over the years and today’s piece is an example of a subject that I’ve revisited many times. 

The simple shape and grace of the blowing tree give it such a symbolic sense and power that it always draws me back, often when I have no intention of revisiting it.  This painting, In the Freeflow, is a 12″ by 17″ image on paper and is a great example of why this tree stays with me. 

The tree takes a very bold stance in the picture plane, dominating the foreground on its mound, giving no evidence of its locale or environment.   The whole narrative of the piece is told in its lines and movement and their relationship with the color and texture of the sky behind and even in the spew lines at the top of the image where the paint breaks free in rivulets going outward.

To me, this piece is about calling on one’s inner grace and strength to survive and ultimately overcome the forces that place seemingly endless obstacles before you.  In the bends of the tree,  I see  the adaptive qualities that allow us to change and grow in different ways so that we might endure our travails.  In the red flowing leaves, I see the unquenchable spirit of those who persevere, bending to the winds that push them in many directions but always rooted in knowing who they are.  And in the bit of yellow in the sky at what seems to be the horizon, I see the hope and potential of a future worth the effort of this act of endurance.

Or maybe it’s just a little tree in the wind.  Sometimes, as they say, a cigar is just a cigar…

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Archaeology: Legacy

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , on May 24, 2010| 2 Comments »

I am finished painting now and have started the process of finishing my work for the upcoming show, Facets, at the Principle Gallery in June.   As with every show, there is a final painting completed and for this show this is the last painting finished, a piece from the Archaeology series that is 18″ by 25″ on paper.  I call this painting  Archaeology: Legacy.

This is a piece that I started at the end of last year.  It was one of those times when I got to a certain point and liked what I had in front of me but had decisions to make witht he piece and didn’t feel ready to make them at the time.  So the piece would be set aside.  Occasionally, I would pull it out and add a bit to the underground artifacts but it just kind of simmered, growing slowly. 

As I neared my self-imposed deadline for this show, I began to hover back more and more to this piece.  I think part of it has to do with the feeling I’ve been experiencing in my mind at this point in the process.  Sometimes, as I near readiness for a show, there is a sense of great mental focus and clarity and other times, a feeling of chaos and disassociation.  There is no rhyme nor reason for this.  It just happens.  Maybe it has to do with my view of the outer world at the time  or how often I yell at the moon.

 I don’t know.

But as the prep for the show winds down this year, I find my concentration and attention dwindling.  Thoughts are short and fleeting.  Bursts of thought and image come and go in a flash.  It might be disturbing if I didn’t recognize this as being a sometime by-product of my process.  So, it seemed fitting that the last piece before me was an Archaeology piece where the details underground consist of a free flow of items and associations. 

As it neared completion, it seemed to calm me, as though a great piece of unfinished business that had been hanging like the sword of Damocles above was finally out of the way.  When the last iota of detritus had found it’s way to the surface, I breathed a sigh of relief.  A sigh of finality.

And maybe that’s what this painting is about.  The sigh of relief of a future world growing beyond the legacy passed on to them from a chaotic world.

Or not.

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Cantus Firmus

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Recent Paintings, Uncategorized, Video, tagged , on May 21, 2010| 2 Comments »

Peers- GC Myers 2003

I’m in the last days of painting before I start final preparations such as framing and such for my upcoming show.  I’m currently putting the final touches on a piece that is a multiple similar in form to the one shown here, Peers from back in 2003.   The piece I’m working on consists of 3 rows of 3 red trees on a 30″ by 30″ canvas.  I’ve used multiple images a number of times over the years, although I often go years between.  There is something almost musical, almost choral, in the repetition of form.

I only mention this today because when I came into the studio I put on an album (CD actually but I still call them albums) of work from Arvo Part.  One of the first pieces to play was Cantus in Memoriam of Benjamin Britten.  It was a mesmerizing tonal piece and as it played, I looked at the title and realized I didn’t know what was meant by the cantus in the title.

Looking it up brought me to the term cantus firmus which is described as a sort of polyphonic composition, meaning it is comprised of multiple interwoven and, often, the same melodies.  A Gregorian chant is an example of one type of polyphony.  The voices, or melodies, are repeated,  one over the other, some at different tones and varying lengths.  I don’t know much about music but as I read I began to equate this meshing of voices and melodies in a cantus firmus with what I was trying to achieve with the multiple images in the painting I was working on.  Each image is basically the same but because of the way they are positioned and come together as a whole, they become more than the product of their parts.

At least, that’s my take on it. 

Anyway, I found a name for the piece I am finishing.  Cantus Firmus.

Here’s the composition from Arvo Part:

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Hierarchy

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , on May 20, 2010| 2 Comments »

Hierarchy ---GC Myers

The name I’ve chosen for my exhibition that opens June 11 at the Principle Gallery is Facets.  When looking at this year’s show, I realized that there was a very wide variety of my work in this group.  Not focusing on one specific aspect as in previous years.  There are  a few Red Roof paintings, a few fragmented sky paintings , a few with converging field rows, a few with Red Chairs and a couple of  my small, lone figures.  It’s overall a pretty interesting group that I think shows a fuller spectrum from the prism of my work.  Thus, the name, Facets.

There are also a handful of my Archaeology pieces in this show.  I only do a handful of these per year now.  The piece above, Hierarchy,  is derived from that series although it focuses more on the layers below the surface rather than artifacts, although there is one yellow shoe there.  This painting is a  30″ by 40″ canvas so it has some size which gives it some visual wallop. 

I’ve been working on this piece for about six months, doing a bit then setting  it aside.  I would keep glimpsing at it when I wasn’t working on it, trying to figure where I would go with it.  But I never wanted to rush it, never wanted to push it too hard.  Wanted it to grow naturally, organically.  It wasn’t until yesterday, when I dragged the last few strokes on the canvas, that I felt I finally saw where the painting had settled and it felt whole.

That’s always an interesting feeling, this sense of the work being suddenly complete.  Full.  Alive.  As though the last few embellishments stir something that make it more than mere paint smeared on canvas, make it an entity with a history and a future all its own.   It’s exhilarating  but sad at the same time, as though the life it’s taken on will soon be gone from my life.  I can’t fully explain it but that’s the feeling I felt yesterday with Hierarchy. 

So, I share my studio for the next few weeks with this breathing, living creature as it impatiently waits to shows its true self to the outside world…

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Signet of Eternity

Posted in Favorite Things, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged on May 18, 2010| 4 Comments »

Signet of Eternity

 

This is a new piece that I am calling Signet of Eternity, taken from a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, the great Indian writer/poet.  There’s a great sense of the eternal in this smallish ( a 4″ by 14′ image) painting on paper.  I find it very calming, very soothing, with its clear, cool colors and crisp line work.  There’s a simplicity and delicacy in this that hints at how fleeting and fragile are the the glimpses of eternal forces we are fortunate to witness in our lifetimes. 

I know that sounds pretty metaphysical but I’m just talking about those moments when all the forces of the world present themself before you in an almost perfect harmony and there is a moment of stillness.  Clarity.  As though the world has chosen to reveal its purpose to you for those few precious seconds and in doing so has taken away all the weight of everyday life. 

 I thought about that yesterday as I trudged, head down, through the woods between my home and my studio.  I stopped on the path suddenly and looked around.  The trees were so graceful and  I caught sight of  the trunk of a tall shagbark hickory.  I let my eyes follow it upward to the powerful arms of branches that seemd to plead to the blue patch of sky above.  It was a grand moment and I thought about how often I traveled that path with eyes fixed on the ground before me.  How many times had I let the thoughts and worries in my head carry me without seeing past these things of beauty?  These signets of eternity.

Here is Tagore’s poem:

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And the Winner Is…

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on May 17, 2010| 3 Comments »

And The Title Is...

 

Well, the Name This Painting! Contest for this year is over.

Many thanks to everyone who has participated and sent in thoughtful and imaginative monikers for consideration.  There were over 80 titles submitted and they ranged from the humorous (From Chair to Eternity) to the poetic ( Autumn Has Fallen on My Summer Chair) to a combination of both:

Whose chairs these are I think I know
I bought them at IKEA. Though
They looked the same
It’s clear to see that one is lame.

There were many differing interpretations of the painting, all evocative, and I have been torn all morning trying to choose the one that best fits the piece.  I may have to put finalists up for an online vote in the future because I’ve been struggling with this.  So many worthy efforts.

But, in the end, I do have to choose and I have to choose that which falls closest to how I see the painting.  The winner this year is from Michael Harris from down around Philadelphia for his title:

  Persist (All We Know).

This title struck a chord immediately with me and came close to to summing up a theme that I’ve had running through my head lately, about how we endure this world by simply putting our heads down and trudging ahead on our chosen path.  This will to survive and struggle forward, to persist, is part of us.  It’s all we truly know.  

So you can see why I was taken by this title.  Thank you, Michael, for a great title.  And many, many thanks to everyone who made the effort in sending in their titles.  Your titles will continue to be part of this painting, as well, adjoined on the back for all time.  They all contribute something to it.

Thanks again, everyone!

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Reflections

Posted in Recent Paintings, Technique/History, Video, tagged , , on May 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I’ve been showing a lot of new work lately that I will be showing at my upcoming show in june at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.  This is a 24″‘ by 30″ painting that I finished back in February which has been above my studio’s fireplace for most of that time. I look at it several times a day and have yet to want to alter it in any way.  I find the sparseness of detail adds to the coolness and focus that I think make this piece work.

I didn’t have a title for this piece, even after months of looking at it.   I sometimes struggle with titling certain pieces that I’ve lived with for a while and seem to strike an inner chord with me.  This was one such painting.  But the time has come to start putting names to paintings.  I have a certain way of doing that that I’ve outlined before where I will set up a piece, pretending that I have never seen it before. I will turn away from it then turn back quickly, taking it in and grasping whatever first strikes me about the piece.  Color, shape, mood—–whatever jumps at me.  Then, taking that first impression, it becomes easier to find the right name.

But sometimes it doesn’t work and there are pieces that don’t adhere to this method.  Like this piece.  So I wait and hope something jumps out at some point or that I stumble across the right words for it.  I was looking for something else earlier and came across an old song from the late 60’s from a group, Marmalade, a Scottish band that had long since left my memory.  While their band’s name was forgettable, their best known hit, Relections On My Life,  was not.  Great song that rekindled old memory and I immediately knew I had a title for this painting: Reflections on a Life.

Sometimes you find things in unlikely places.  For those of you who don’t remember Marmalade, here they are:

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Kathedra

Posted in Opinion, Recent Paintings, tagged on May 14, 2010| 3 Comments »

The Latin word for chair is cathedra, coming from the Greek kathedra,which gave us the word cathedral.  Without saying any more, that is the basis for this painting’s title, Kathedra.

This is a painting I finished several weeks ago which has been leaning against the stones of my studio’s  fireplace since then.  It is a 24″ by 24″ canvas and it catches my eye on a regular basis.  Perhaps it is the fragmented look of the sky with what some people call a stained-glass look. 

While I understand people seeing it as looking like stained-glass,  I see the lines in the sky as being fractures or seams in the fabric of time and memory.  It’s a difficult thing to explain, as are many things that live deep within us, things that make up our inherent system of belief and understanding.  Things we instinctively know or believe even though we may not know why or how this  even came to be.  I’m not talking about religious belief so much as I’m talking about how the unseen forces and energies of the natural world really operate around us,  just beyond our perception.   

Maybe it is the physics of belief.

That being said, perhaps that is what this represents for me.  The seat of belief before a mysterious world that we barely know and can’t even begin to understand.  Kathedra…

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