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Archive for the ‘Recent Paintings’ Category

At the Gallery

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on December 28, 2009| 2 Comments »

Well, I’m through the first two days of a 5 day stint at the West End Gallery in Corning.  Thus far it has been pretty uneventful with pretty light traffic, less than we had hoped for the days following Christmas.

I was able to meet, for the first time, several collectors who came in.  One was a lady from California who had acquired several pieces of mine over the years.  As she came through the gallery with her daughter, who she was visiting in Corning, I asked if I could be of assistance.  She said no, saying see just wanted to see some of the work of Gary Snyder, the artist who had done several paintings she had purchased there.  As she went up the stairs to the upper gallery, I ran through the artists who have shown there and couldn’t for the life of me, remember a Gary Snyder.

A while later, she came down the stairs and I asked if she saw anything of interest.  She said she loved Snyder’s work that was there.

Perplexed I asked if she had actually found some.

She said yes and explained how she ‘d followed his work since the smaller blocks of color and the first red trees.  It suddenly dawned on me that she was confusing my name.

“Do you mean Gary Myers– GC Myers?”

In that moment it dawned on her as well that she had the name confused. “Oh my, yes!” she exclaimed then told me she was thinking of a California poet named Gary Snyder.  I told her that I was the painter and she was very surprised and pleased to finally meet me.  We talked for quite a while, having a pleasant conversation, and she left with one of my books.

There were several other encounters of that sort, enough to make the days go by quickly. The piece at the top, Away From the Chaos, a 20″ by 24″ canvas has been garnering a lot of attention.  It has an interesting rhythm in the sky that has been making people stop and take notice.  One of the benefits of being in the gallery is watching how people react to different pieces from different artists, seeing how different colors and elements attract the viewer.  It’s a constant reminder of the elements that make a painting work and how important it is to keep those elements central to the piece.

So, even when it’s been slow in the gallery there are lesson to be learned.  Got to run and get ready for class…

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A New History

Posted in Favorite Things, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on December 20, 2009| Leave a Comment »

This is a painting that is currently being displayed at the Kada Gallery in Erie, PA.  It’s a 36″ by 48″ piece on masonite that is part of my Archaeology series, titled Archaeology: A New History.

It has a real aged, sepia-tone feel that is different than most of the pieces in the series, a feel which is central to my own feelings on the group.  I see the items under the surface as a type of old family photos, evidence of time here on this earth.

The fairly large size of the painting gives it a bit of oomph and emphasizes the simplicity of the overall composition, letting the tree do all the speaking from across the room.  But as you close in the subterranean objects begin to take shape and tell their own stories.  The whole idea is to present a variety of items and let the reactions of the viewer form a narrative for the underground part of the painting.  Hopefully this jibes with the overall feel of the piece for the viewer.

Well, that’s the idea…

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Unafraid

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , on December 17, 2009| 4 Comments »

This is a painting titled Unafraid, that has been showing at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.  I was looking through some recent work and this smaller piece ( it’s a 6″ by 12″ canvas)  caught my eye.

Maybe it was the fact that I had been looking at older work earlier as I was scanning some older slides to my computer and this reminded me of some of that earlier work.  It had the simplicity of much of that work and the brushwork in the sky harkens back to earlier pieces, as well.

It’s a fine line to walk when you’re dealing with extremely simple compositions, trying to pull out emotion and feel from a minimal number of elements.  If it’s not done right, the piece ends up bland, saying little.  It might have an appealing appearance but it lacks depth and staying power.  It’s like a writer finishing a chapter that is well written but ultimately says nothing that moves the narrative or the reader.  Unsatisfying.  But when a simple piece works, meaning that it is full of feeling and a sense of completeness, it is strikingly dynamic.  The message and meaning is just right there to be seen without filtering through layers of obscuring detail.

I think that’s why I like this little piece so much.  It is what it is.  Unafraid.  It says what it has to say to the viewer quickly and boldly.  Those who feel it will read it  and understand it immediately.  And if the viewer didn’t connect, this painting has the feeling that it doesn’t care.  It’s not trying to make people like it.  It is what it is and it’s not afraid to be such.

Unafraid…

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Time Slips Out the Door…

Posted in Opinion, Recent Paintings, tagged , on December 1, 2009| 2 Comments »

Hard to believe it’s the first day of December already.  We’re in the last month of this first decade and it seems like we’re still adjusting to living in the 2000’s.

Maybe it’s a good thing.  Put this past decade behind us and start fresh.  There were a lot of things in these past ten years that I think most of us would like to put in the rear view.

Luckily for us, time is very accommodating in that respect.

Time just rushes onward, like a river over the rapids.  It sounds cliche but time truly seems to accelerate as I age.  Maybe it’s just a function of becoming more efficient at the art of wasting time as one ages.  I mean, I’ve had a lot of years to practice this skill and I have to admit, I’ve become pretty good at it.  There aren’t nearly enough hours in the day to accommodate all the ways I would like to waste my time.  Waste is probably the wrong word.  Waste has the implication of there being little if any value to the activity.

Spend is a better choice.  Value becomes a relative term with this word.  What I might consider useful time spent, others might view it as a complete waste of time.

One man’s meat is another man’s poison.

Anyway, time is flying by as I write this.  I’ve already wasted- er, spent–  enough time with this.

Happy December…

The piece at the top is The Dark Blue Above is hanging at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.  It’s a 12″ by 24″ canvas and one that I think really has great visual pop.

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Will

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on November 14, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism;

the way you play it is free will .        —Nehru

Will- GC Myers 2009The words of longtime Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru seem to fit well with what I felt from this new piece that I delivered this past week to the Haen Gallery in Asheville, NC.  It’s called Will and is a 10″ by 30″ canvas.

For me, this piece is about enduring, weathering the winds and tides of change while sticking to one’s objective.  I see a lot of strength in this tree.  A lot of will power. It bends, it strains, yet stands.

As Nehru inferred, we are all subject to strains and obstacles that we could easily let waylay our best laid plans.  But we also all possess the ability to will ourselves past these barriers, if we only choose to do so.  This decision to do so is one that many give up on much early in their struggle and settle for a mediocre version of what they foresaw for themselves.  The tree in this painting refuses to settle.

That’s what I get from this piece.  Maybe you’ll see something other than this and come away with a completely different read on this painting.  That’s okay and as valid as my own translation. Hopefully, it will have something to say to you…

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Strata Under Blue

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on November 10, 2009| 2 Comments »

9909-293 Strata Under BlueI’m still on the road today, hopefully in Asheville, North Carolina at the Haen Gallery.  It’s a beautiful space in downtown, on Biltmore Ave.  It has high ceilings and big open spaces so it really highlights larger work well.

This painting shown, Strata Under Blue, is one of the pieces that I’m delivering to the Haen.  It’s a very vibrant piece that has the boldness and strength to hang in the large space of this gallery and not be overpowered by the space, even though it’s not a huge painting.

One of the things I like about showing in a large space is that it forces you to look at your own work in a different way.  You have to be able to accentuate the points in your work that have the most strength and let them grow even more.  When I first showed at the Haen, smaller works with a lot of subtlety tended to be dwarfed on the big walls, lessening the effect that the work might hold in a smaller, more intimate space.

So I would try to direct larger work there, work that was bolder and more dominant.  It’s been a good transition thus far and I have plans for some even larger work for this gallery.

Home tomorrow…

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Depth

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on November 2, 2009| 5 Comments »

GC Myers 2009I am still finishing up a group of paintings that I will deliver to a few of the galleries that represent my work in the next week.  I am doing bits of touch-up, varnishing paintings and final framing.  One that I am framing today is this painting, one that I’ve really been focusing on as it sits in the studio.

This is a 12″ by 36″ canvas which gives it a little size.  By that I mean the painting is big enough to have its size give additional impact.  For instance, if this piece were a much smaller size, say 6″ by 18″, it would still have the visual oomph of the painting itself but would not visually dominate a wall because of its size whereas this larger sized painting has the same visual impact and because of its size, could be the focus of a much larger area.

This painting has tremendous visual pull.  I find myself peeking at it at many points during the day, drawn in by the warm feeling of the layered fields.  It also has great depth into the piece which is something I often mention as a desirable trait in any of my paintings.  I don’t know if I can explain what I really mean by that.  When I look at one of my pieces, I visualize the horizon or focal point of the painting as being the point where the two planes of the sky and ground come together.  Like looking into the bottom of a triangle set on its side.  The further away that this line of convergence appears to me, the better.  I don’t know if this is just my particular preference or if this is something that is one of those common traits of response.

I struggled a bit with a title for this piece because I saw a lot of different things in  it.  There is a sense of moment, the sense of the new day coming ( or the present day fleeting, however you prefer to see it) in the light of the sky as well as a sense of place in the houses and fields.  The red tree has a feeling of pondering and the two nearest trees at the left give a sense of entering upon a scene or moment.  The whole thing has a nice unity with all elements coming together and playing off one another that I could use as well when considering a title.

I am considering calling it the In The Depth of the Sky.

I don’t know.  There’s still a little time to reconsider…

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Burn Away the Dark

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on October 26, 2009| 4 Comments »

Burn Away the DarkI have discussed before how I translate my paintings for myself.  I have often described the blowing red tree I sometimes use as being symbolic of sacrifice or giving of oneself to something larger than oneself.  Or I have said that it could symbolize the sending out of something into the universe.  A message.  A prayer.  A hope or desire.

But there is another that I may have missed.  This new painting reminded me of what it might also stand for.

The flame.

It has the look of the flame and reminds me of the fire of thought, wisdom  and creation.  The flame that illuminates, chases away the darkness.

The flame of reason.

That’s how I immediately read this painting as it came to its completion.  It has a real feeling of underlying darkness and the way the tree sat with the light breaking over the horizon really enhanced the feeling of the tree as a flame, burning away the dark.

I’ve been spending a lot of time the last few days looking at this 16″ by 20″ canvas.  There is a real, active sense of hope in this painting, a feeling that reason can endure and prevail through dark times.

Let’s hope…

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And There is a New Day…

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , on October 23, 2009| Leave a Comment »

And the New Day Approaches...This is another new piece that I’m calling  And There is a New Day…  It’s a 24″ by 30″ canvas and is in the obsessionist style that I have been primarily focusing on lately, which is closer to traditional painting than the usual style I have used for the past 13 or 14 years.

I really like the feel of this painting.  The underlying texture is such that it really allows the darkness to show through while still bearing lighter paints above.  This texture also gives a slightly ragged edge on the lines, which really alters the overall look.  It gives it a less controlled feel.  It reminds me , in a way, of some examples of German Expressionism and American Modernism of the  early 1920’s.  This piece still is more controlled than many of the pieces that it brings to mind but still has the give and take of light and dark that I so admire.

The theme of this piece is a familiar one for me.  There is sense of being caught in a pause, waiting for the onset of something.  A new day.  A new wind.  A new path.  In this case, it is light of the new day breaking over the horizon.  I like the way the light breaks into confetti-like dabs of color.  It creates a real vibrancy, a sense of movement forthcoming that is spreading over the sleeping village.  The houses have no windows or doors, as is usual for such pieces of mine.  I sometimes think the absence of the doors and windows symbolizes sleep in my paintings but I’m not really sure if that’s all I really see.  There are other times when I think they symbolize a general inward turning, an introversion where there is no awareness of the outside world.  Sometimes, I just think I like the look without the windows or door.

I like that there’s a little mystery in that interpretation, even for myself.  The excitement in painting for me is in not knowing what will emerge.  The day that I know how everything in one of my paintings will turn out or be translated will be the last day I need to paint.

This painting makes me glad that I do still need to paint…

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On the Blue Canal

Posted in Early Paintings, Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , on October 21, 2009| 1 Comment »

Blue Canal Pieces- GC MyersThese are two new pieces I recently completed, both 12 ” square canvasses.  They are in the same vein as several other paintings I have completed recently and featured here on the blog.

As I’ve stated before, these pieces are for me all about shapes and forms and color, more so than about an actual depiction of place.  I want to clarify that the feeling and sense of place that is created in these pieces is important to me.  But it is something that comes about as a result of the way forms and color fall together, rather than a premeditated plan for the composition.

The canal in these pieces is very important with that bright blue counterpoint to the red of the roofs and the way it bisects the village.  I have tried using a more subtle color in the canal but that blue pop! makes each painting stand out.

I have considered keeping these pieces together as a set, which is something I have done in years past, but I probably will not this time.

I had an interesting experience with a set of 3 very small paintings that were sold 11 or 12 years ago.  They were tiny landscapes, only about an inch and a half square in size.  They were, like the paintings above, not of any specific location but like many of my landscapes, influenced by the area around my home.  There is a spot on the way to Ithaca called Connecticut Hill that has an interesting look and feel that I often think of when I’m painting.

I met the buyer of this particular set one day at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA  as I was delivering some work and we spoke about the paintings.  He told me that he loved the way they reminded him of an area near he went to college.  I asked him where he had went.  He said Cornell, in Ithaca.  I asked him where this place was he had described.

He said Connecticut Hill.

He didn’t know that I was from near there when we spoke and there was little in those tiny pieces that would make me say they were of that place.  Just the feeling…

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