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Archive for the ‘Technique/History’ Category

Into the Pattern

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , on February 26, 2016| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- Into the PatternMy latest works have been focusing on the use of pattern within my landscapes.  Well, I guess you could call it pattern.  There is often a motif of shape and sometimes a direction of movement but for the most part it is fairly chaotic and seemingly without order.  Maybe that is what art is –trying to see pattern within chaos, trying to impose some sense of order so that we might better understand what we are seeing.

And maybe it is our reaction to seeing an emerging pattern that defines what we consider as beautiful.  I am sure many of you have once seen an image that struck you immediately and remained in your mind even if it was only seen in a glimpse.  I know I have.  I am often mystified as to why this occurs.  My only explanation is that its form and pattern somehow jibe with some innate sense of form and pattern, something inborn and with us since the beginning of our time as a species.

Perhaps even the patterns of those things of which we are made.  Maybe the pattern is us.

And that could be expressed through religion.  Or spirituality.  Or physics. Or art…

That being said, this new painting is an 18″ by 36″ canvas that I am calling Into the Pattern.  For me, it represents what I have written above– that we are  part of the pattern  and the pattern is part of who we are.  The Red Tree here is understanding of this and begins to meld into the strong pattern of motion seen in the sky, as expressed by the leaves coming from its limbs.

This is a pretty simple image but it has a nice tension between chaotic motion and calm stillness of understanding.  At one point, I had painted in a figure near the tree.  For me, it absolutely destroyed the impact of the whole piece, distracting focus from what the painting was trying to send out.  The figure just plain bothered me and it didn’t take much thought for me to decide to paint it over.

It was amazing how this changed the painting and my perception of it.  Now, it is one of those pieces that I look at quite often throughout the day here in the studio, pondering what it is saying to me and trying to decide if we are part of the pattern or if it is part of us.  Or both…

 

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Van Gogh’s Selfies

Posted in Favorite Things, Painting, Technique/History, Video, tagged , , , , , on February 13, 2016| 2 Comments »

van-gogh-self-portraitI showed this short video here about six years back.  It’s a compilation of morphing self portraits from Vincent Van Gogh put together by Phillip Scott Johnson that I found intriguing then and now.

It’s a short piece, less than a minute in length, and it’s interesting to see how the familiar views of Van Gogh relate to one another and how his appearance or, at least,  his perception of it, changed through the years.   His state of mind is evident in each piece, with some showing a vibrant, seemingly healthy man and others showing the more tortured Van Gogh that we tend to think of as the man.

I found it interesting now because I have been spending some time recently looking at my own older work in a different way.  I am not looking at the pictures as whole images.  Instead, I have been looking at the individual marks I am using in each and seeing how it has changed through the years.  Or how it has stayed the same in some cases.

I’ve always said that my painting for me was a continuum that, while changing all the time, always seemed the same to me– always in the present.  But looking at it in this manner I am finding that my mark-making does change periodically which fundamentally changes the way a picture is painted and how it emerges in the end.

It’s not something I often think about– I just paint in whichever way the moment strikes me.  Sometimes it is dependent on the condition of the brush or the weight and quality of the paint I am using.  As a brush ages and wears, especially with the rough treatment given to them by me, it makes a more and more distinct mark that I find appealing.  Looking back, I can often tell when I am using fresh or old brushes.

So, I watched this film in the same way and it is fascinating to just look at Van Gogh’s mark-making throughout without focusing on the faces.  It is varied and each differing style serves the image in different ways.  Some marks are wildly expressive and others small and quietly acting in service to the greater whole.

As I said, it’s less than minute and interesting even if you don’t give a damn about the mark-making part of it.

 

 

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Where the Winds Gather

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , on February 1, 2016| 6 Comments »

GC Myers- Where the Winds GatherSometimes I will get an image in my mind that seems all fleshed out and full.  It’s just a matter of moving that image from the inner workings of my consciousness into the outer world of reality.  Sometimes, it goes smoothly and the final painting matches that first thought of it.

But more often, that trip from thought to reality produces something completely unlike the original vision. And sometimes that is not so good.  The work shows the struggle in trying to force the vision into reality and the whole thing looks forced and without rhythm.  But occasionally, one slips out that is not at all like the original vision but somehow finds its own rhythm and comes to life on its own.

I think that is what happened with the painting shown above, a small 9″ by 12″ canvas that I call Where the Winds Gather.  I’ve had an image of this painting in my mind for a few weeks and as I would be doing other things it would often bounce through my mind.  But it looked much different than this painting.  The color was not the same nor was the manner in which the whirls of wind in the sky were painted.  Some of that is the result of working in a smaller size which restricted the type of marks I could make with my brush.

There was a point when I was well into this piece that I could see that it had strayed far afield from my original concept and I began losing my enthusiasm.  For a while I wanted to just set it aside or simply call it a day and paint it over.  But I decided to push through and see if it could evolve into something more.  And slowly it did, at  least in my own eyes.  There’s an interesting balance of rough and soft in this and the pattern in the sky came together much better than it appeared in its earlier form.

There’s just something I like in this piece.  Maybe it’s just the fact that it came to life despite my own original misgivings.  I know that I admire that kind of determination from someone in overcoming the low expectations placed on them.  Grit.

Maybe that should be the title– Gritty Determination.

 

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Sunbeam Unreal

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , , , on September 15, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- SunbeamThe aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance, and this, and not the external manner and detail, is true reality.
—Aristotle
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This new painting, a small 6″ by 12″ canvas that will going with me to Alexandria this coming Sunday for my Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery,  intrigues me on many levels but mainly in the way in which it challenges my own perception of reality.

I wondered how light would appear in a world that gave it different properties.  For instance, what if instead of a sun, that ever-burning orb in the sky, our light was provided by a ring of light that cut across the sky?  And what if the source of light was darker than the light it provided?  How would it affect how we looked at our world?

The odd thing is that my mind accepts the reality that was created.  And that speaks to the words of Aristotle at the top of the page.  The significance of a piece of art is in how our mind interprets the reality of it, in how it connects  with our inner needs and perceptions.

For me, this small painting works on those terms.  It is warm and inviting and familiar even though the reality of the setting is alien to me.  I feel as comfortable–  perhaps even more– in this environment as I would in a perfectly represented image of the real world in which we live.

And that is all I ask of it…

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Abstract Fears

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , on September 9, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Plates 2015I had a dream a month or so ago that has had me working on fields of painted shapes, trying to recapture the forms that captivated me in that dream.  It’s an elusive thing and I am still trying to figure out where this fits in my work.

GC Myers- Time Frames smI have used many of these attempts as the background texture under a few pieces featuring some of my normal imagery– the Red Tree in a landscape for example, like the painting shown here on the right.  I like the added depth that this background gives the work and could easily see it becoming a regular part of my process.

But part of me sees the painted group of shapes as an entity in and of itself, something that could and should stand alone.  Even though I feel my normal work is built primarily on abstract forms, showing a piece like the one shown here at the top of the page feels different in many ways, some of which raise fears in me.

First of all, it is based less on emotion than most of my work.  I think my work comes often across because it speaks of and to emotions common to us all.  This work feels more purely meditative, like I am looking at the building blocks of thought and matter.  They simply exist.  No emotion, no judgments, no narrative to fulfill.

And that scares me a bit.  Takes me out of my comfort zone and leaves me feeling more exposed even though I might actually be showing fewer aspects of myself in the work.  Maybe it’s a case of standing naked without the protection of any sort of cover, asking viewers to accept me as I am without trying to influence them with my choice of what I wear over my true being.

That’s a hard thing to do when you’ve been standing in front of people in one guise for so long.  So I struggle tying to determine if this new work can stand naked and alone.  There is much more to explore in it and over the next few months I hope to find the answers I am seeking.

As with all things, we shall see…

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Perpetua

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , on September 4, 2015| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Perpetua

The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual. That is why the revolutionary spiritual movements that declare all former things worthless are in the right, for nothing has yet happened.

—Franz Kafka

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I have been working on some new work that is built on layers of painted textures in the under painting.  They are often in their own way abstract pieces in themselves and I find myself contemplating the possibility of building more on these to create pure abstract paintings without any direction toward representation.  I think there will be at least several attempts in the future to at least explore the possibility, trying to see if I can satisfy my own needs within the realm of abstraction.  But for the moment, the abstract elements support, and hopefully enhance,  my own imagery.

Much like my normal gessoed surfaces, these painted underlying elements are meant to create a visual thumbprint, a distinct and individual surface that has a life force of its own and adds a measure of depth to the whole of the painting.  Some of the painted textures have been chaotic with multiple shapes and colors throughout.  Others use similar forms and colors set in a loosely patterned manner.  Whether they are random or built in a pattern, they must have some natural flow and depth within.

This new piece above is an 18″ by 18″ canvas that I call Perpetua.  It is built on a base of what I would call painted rectangular plates that seem to be descending into the background.  For me, it takes a simple image comprised of only a couple of elements and gives it added levels of depth and meaning.

When I look at this, that background has me considering things beyond the central figure of the Red Tree and its place in the moment.  It becomes a mere marker in a larger continuum, perhaps at the vanguard in its own present time but soon to be surpassed by the progress of the coming future.  Perhaps those plates represent images of past times and those things that were the cutting edges of those times, hovering in the background and supporting a new ascension.

Maybe.  Who knows?  I painted it and much of it remains a mystery to me.

And maybe that is the whole point…

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A New Texture

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , on August 19, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- 2015 smBeen working on some new pieces, some with simple imagery with an added layer of random transparent forms making up a large block of the painting.  Here it creates an undertexture in the background which forms the sky on this untitled painting, a 12″ by 12″ canvas.  It has the same sort of chaotic feeling that I often try to create with my preliminary layers of gesso in prepping the panel on which I paint.  This canvas does have those layers of gesso giving it a mild texture but the transparent organic shapes painted over it have an overriding effect that carries and defines the sky here.

It’s still an experiment in progress but so far I like the effect and the feeling it creates here.  Now I am trying to envision how it might incorporate itself in the wider body of my work, to see if it adds something tangible to the work. I have to just give it a little time and study it a bit before it becomes a regular part of my work.

We’ll see…

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Lucid Dreaming

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 7, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- Lucid DreamAll men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.

~Plutarch

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The other night I fell asleep early then awoke and after a bit tried to go back to sleep.  I flopped around trying to be comfortable but the wheels of my mind started turning and for a while I just lay there.  But there came a time when I slipped briefly into dreams even though I still felt awake.

It’s a strange feeling but it felt good at the same time because in those moments of lucid dreaming I saw a color and a surface that was new to me, one that I saw being used in my work.  It was multi-colored with blues and greens within it and a certain level of depth within the color that gave it a gorgeous glow.  Plus it was arranged in transparent plates that overlapped so that the combined colors deepened even more.

It’s hard to describe now because even in the time soon after waking I struggled to fully recall it in my memory.  It was there completely but in a vague sort of way.  It was not a color that I had worked with or had even seen though I can’t be sure of that.

I wanted to see it and tried to recreate it within my own range of color and technique.  I stumbled a bit at it for most of the day yesterday and finally realized that it would require something new, something different either in media or process to get the color and surface and depth that was still in there somewhere.

But the piece at the top did pop out during the day’s attempts and while it disappointed me because it didn’t fulfill my dream, it has an interesting feel that pleases me on another level.  Maybe this will take me a step closer to what I am seeing in my dream or maybe it will evolve into something different on its own, something I can’t yet envision.

It has shown itself in my dream so maybe it can come forward now if I keep looking for it with my waking mind.  Who knows?  You can never tell how things will turn out when you’re trying to take something from that inner world and move it out into the waking world.

We shall see…

 

 

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Blue Awakening

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , , , on July 16, 2015| 1 Comment »

GC Myers- Blue Awakening smThe deeper the blue becomes, the more strongly it calls man towards the infinite, awakening in him a desire for the pure and, finally, for the supernatural… The brighter it becomes, the more it loses its sound, until it turns into silent stillness and becomes white.

–Wassily Kandinsky

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Certain colors always raise a strong visceral response from me.  I think my use of reds and yellows is evidence of this as is my affinity for the color blue, which I’ve discussed here.  Maybe Kandinsky hits the mark with his words: it calls man towards the infinite, awakening in him a desire for the pure and, finally, for the supernatural.  

I know for myself those are feelings that often are driven forward when I work with the color blue.  There is often a contemplative feeling, one that wonders at the unknown, that infinite, that we seek, that comes with the color.  I see it in the painting at the top.

Called Blue Awakening, this 18″ by 24″ painting on panel has a simplified and almost naive appearance at first glance.  But the blue of the sky set against the pale whiteness of the moon changes the piece from a folksy vignette to one of meditative wonderment.  The Red Tree here takes on a glow that speaks of a new understanding or acceptance of its place and purpose in the universe.  It represents a true awakening of the spirit for me.

The interesting thing for me is that there is not a tremendous amount of blue in the painting.  There are a few tones throughout the lower landscaped  half of the painting and much of the sky are tones that move away from blue.  But the blue that is there commands the space, creating the overall feeling of the piece.  Such is the power of blue.

This painting is, of course, part of my solo show, Home+Land, which is now hanging at the West End Gallery and opens with a reception tomorrow evening from 5-7:30.  The show runs from July 17 until September 4, 2015 and there is a Gallery Talk  on Saturday, August 1.  More info on that in the next couple of weeks.

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The Animating Presence

Posted in Biographical, Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , , , , on May 28, 2015| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- The Anmating Presence smSometimes I am a little hesitant in showing certain paintings here on the blog.  Sometimes their photographed images just don’t fully convey the impact or depth of the work.

Take the painting shown above for an example.  Titled The Animating Presence, it produces a strong  initial impact with its large size– 20″ by 60″ on canvas— and its deep colors and textures.  The photo captures the colors (although not the depth within the colors) and a mere fraction of the texture but the  power in its size is lost on the smaller screen.  It is still a strong image but most people would be surprised at how truly different the actual painting comes across in person.

I showed this painting here a few months back in an early stage, shown now at the bottom.  The landscape was laid out in the red oxide paint I use for my underpainting and the sky with its first several layers of color, the emotional atmosphere of the piece beginning to take shape.  Many, many more layers produced the sky as it now looks above.  There are layers that are almost completely obscured, perhaps with only a tiny glimmer of it coming through here and there.  Looking at it, you may not be aware of it but its presence is vital to me, giving the whole thing the depth and life force that I seek in it.

And maybe that last sentence is a good way of explaining the title, The Animating Presence.  The more I worked on this piece, the more I began to feel as though the Red Tree was in some sort of communion with a greater power in this painting, represented by the light breaking over the horizon.

This is always a hard thing to explain for me.  As I have explained in the past, I was not brought up with religion of any sort.  I was never indoctrinated in any sort of system of faith, never led to have either belief or disbelief.  I was just here, neither a believer or an atheist.  But looking at the world I had a sense that there was something more, some unseen source of power that sparked all life and consciousness.  It wasn’t a benevolent god sitting on a throne in some heaven pulling the strings on human events and listening to our prayers.  No, it was more a matter of physics and light and energy, an unseen force that permeated everything– an animating presence.

Now, a couple of hundred words can’t really sum up the whole of  what I am describing or even what I see in this painting.  But it is this struggle to come to terms with this idea of that presence that I see in this painting.  That like those unseen layers of paint in the sky which give depth to the painting, one’s life is given meaning by an unseen force that we may never fully know or understand.

You can see this painting at the Principle Gallery at my Native Voice show,

2015-gc-myers-wip animating presence

 

 

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