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Posts Tagged ‘New Paintings’

Out of Line

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.
― Ray Bradbury

Zen and the Art of Writing

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GC Myers- Out of Line smI am in the final stages of preparing work for my show, Into the Common Ground, that opens December 5th at the Kada Gallery in Erie.  Final touches on the last few paintings. Framing. Packing.  Details, details, details.

  It is  both my favorite time and least favorite time in the studio.  Favorite because if things go as normal, the work peaks right about this time and the show’s personality and feel really shows through.  I can now see the work as a group hanging in my mind and witnessing it as it comes together is a wonderful feeling that repels the ever present self-doubts that creep in from time to time– still.

It is my least favorite because of the all important detail work that takes place.  This week will be filled with last brush strokes, the smell of varnish and stain in the air and the dust from freshly sanded frames coating my clothing.  It’s not that I mind doing this work–it’s exhilarating to see a piece sometimes transform when it is framed.  It’s just that mind is moving ahead of my body.  I am already seeing in my mind new work inspired by the flurry of the last work from this show but can’t act on it as my body is busy on the details of the show.  There’s a weird tension between the relief of being done with a group of work and wanting to keep going that puts me a bit on edge during this time.

The piece above is one of the later pieces from this group.  It’s a 12″ by 36″ painting on canvas that I call Out of Line.  It is obviously, or so I think, that this is a piece that deals with our singularity as individuals.

For many of us, stepping out of line or expressing our individuality is an uncomfortable thing.  We don’t have the comfort and protection of the crowd to hide our flaws, our quirks.  But for some, it is just a matter of being.  They accept and even celebrate their own flaws and quirks because they make them who they are.  And that is as it should be.

Or so I think.

I don’t think I need to go any further on this painting– it speaks very well for itself, thank you.

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Moon and Mood

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on July 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Moon and Mood

Moon and Mood

There are several paintings in my upcoming Layers show at the West End Gallery that feature the moon quite prominently.  I showed one, Moonlight Revelation, earlier in the month in a blog post.  I like these pieces as there is usually  a certain moodiness, a placid and contemplative feeling that permeates the work.

I don’t know if its the moon or the bluish tones that I use to represent the night sky, but is has a very calming effect on me.  The piece shown above, Moon and Mood, is a 16″ by 20″ canvas that very much represents this feeling that I describe.  Its purplish blue sky and pale moon give the the horizon a hazy, misty feel which creates a mysterious atmosphere.  If you’ve ever looked across broad moonlit fields, you’ve probably had that feeling that there are things there that are barely visible.  The imagination sometimes creates possibilities, some far from the realm of reality,  for what these things might be.

Below, is Traveler’s Moon, an 8″ by 24″ canvas, and the aforementioned Moonlight Revelation,  24″ by 24″ on linen.  Both are also part of the show.

The show, Layers, opens Friday, July 25th, at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY.  The opening reception runs from 4:30 until 7:30 PM.  The exhibit hangs until August 29.

Traveler's Moon

Traveler’s Moon

Moonlight Revelation

Moonlight Revelation

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Proclamation/ Redux

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on June 5, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I am on the road today so  being short on time  I am reposting a short entry from a couple of months back, in early April.  I normally don’t repost articles so soon after they first appear but I consider this painting, Proclamation,  an important part of my show , Traveler, which opens tomorrow night at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.  It represents for me the culmination of the journey, the end point for which the entire journey was made.  It is about a true realization of self, of attainment of goal .  And therein lays the central theme of this show– that our lives can have direction and purpose.

So, without any more words, here is what I posted earlier:

GC Myers- Proclamation By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with what I love — the earth and the wonders thereof — the sea — the sun. All that we mean when we speak of the external world. A want to enter into it, to be part of it, to live in it, to learn from it, to lose all that is superficial and acquired in me and to become a conscious direct human being. I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming so that I may be (and here I have stopped and waited and waited and it’s no good — there’s only one phrase that will do) a child of the sun. About helping others, about carrying a light and so on, it seems false to say a single word. Let it be at that. A child of the sun.

—Katherine Mansfield

October, 1922, Her final journal entry

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I came across this final journal entry from the writer Katherine Mansfield, who died much too early from tuberculosis at age 35, and thought how much her words fit what I was thinking about this newer painting shown above. I call this 30″ by 40″ painting Proclamation and the thought and feeling it may be proclaiming might very well be the same as those expressed by Mansfield.

It is a painting that speaks of coming to an understanding of one’s self and stepping forward in the light to show that true identity. It is at once flawed and beautiful. Flawed by the scars of attained wisdom and change. Beautiful because it is honest and real, open to the elements and all who look upon it. It has become, to use Mansfield’s term, a child of the sun.

I think it would be too easy to say too much here.

Let it be at that. A child of the sun.

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Traveler- A Full Preview

Posted in Biographical, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , , on June 3, 2014| 7 Comments »

GC Myers- Find Your Way The  painting shown here on the right is a24″ by 36″ on canvas and is part of  my solo exhibit which opens Friday at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria.  It’s title is Find Your Way which fits neatly in with the show’s title, Traveler.  As concepts, both this painting and this show have to do with moving forward and discovering new territories within, becoming more than you were when the journey began.  Continuous seeking, sometimes plodding along, all to find that internal sense of comfort and belonging that some might refer to as home.  That place where your external reality one day matches your internal reality.

I’m not sure that was my goal when I began painting just a little over twenty years ago.  I knew that I needed to travel from that place inside where I had been dwelling and color and form became a vehicle for me, one that would carry me emotionally to new horizons and vistas, closer to that place where I might feel comfortably at home, inside and out.

And it has.

I am closer to home but it’s a journey that will most likely not end until my final day.  And that’s okay because I have come to appreciate the lessons of the trek and the sight of the new horizon coming into view, knowing that I am further along than I was it all began.

A big part of my journey has been my affiliation with a few galleries, all with which I have had long relationships, who have allowed me to continually keep searching  for that place that I don’t even know.  I began with the Principle Gallery in early 1997 and had my first solo show there in 2000.  It is where the Red Tree was born and this year marks fifteen years that they have allowed me to chronicle my internal travels in a show there each year.  It has been my great pleasure to have stumbled into such a wonderful place with such warm and real people, a place that makes me feel closer to home during this journey.

There’s a full preview of the show below that I quickly put together.  I hope it gives you that sense of the continuity of effort and purpose from image to image that I see.

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Taking a Different Perspective

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on April 17, 2014| 5 Comments »

GC Myers- April 2014This is a new painting, a still untitled 12″ by 12″ canvas. Normally when I look at such a piece I see in it something hopeful, forward looking toward a distant horizon.  Destiny bound.  But while I was looking at this piece, absorbing it and trying to take in its feeling, something I had read at some point came to mind.  I can’t remember who said it but the gist of it was that you can’t connect the dots of destiny by looking forward– you can only connect them by looking backwards.

In other words, you can’t plan your destiny.  But you can see how you arrived where you are.

This idea of connecting the dots by looking backwards was no stranger to me.  That was the central appeal of  genealogy for me, being able to find the trail that brought us to where we are at this moment.  To see that path in some sort of view that takes what might be very mundane lives when seen individually and places them in a grand and sweeping perspective.  Doing this made me feel connected with my humanity, able to see that I was not some sort of alienated being  but was a part of that sweeping vision.  Would I be a noteworthy part?  That I could not tell.

As it was said, you can’t plan your destiny.

So looking at this piece with this thought in mind, I no longer see it forward looking.  I view it as the perspective of someone who has turned around on the trail and is looking back at from where they came.  And there’s a certain synchronicity in this.  The sun and the water represent our evolutionary beginnings and the path, our trail though the ages.

Strangely, it doesn’t lose any of its hopefulness by taking on this perspective.  In fact, I now find it comforting from this perspective, that I have a purpose and responsibility as the recipient of a task that must be carried forward, at least for my short stint here on the trail.

The dots are connected and now I can look ahead…

 

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Show Nights, Now and Then

Posted in Biographical, tagged , , , , , on June 6, 2013| 4 Comments »

GC Myers- Boundless smWell, tomorrow’s the day of another show at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, this one called Observers.  Opening tomorrow evening ( the opening reception begins at 6:30 PM ) and running through the first week of July, it is, as I’ve noted here a number of times, my fourteenth consecutive annual show at the gallery, dating back to 2000.  My first show was called, fittingly, Redtree  and featured the premiere of that tree that has long since populated my work.  At that point I couldn’t imagine that I’d be fortunate enough to still be having solo shows there all these years later.

But even though this show has become a part of my life and it seems as natural as breathing to be preparing for this show in the first half of every year, I still feel the same nerves as I did with that first show, a distinct mix of anxiety and fear that somehow never fails to show up in the days and hours before a show.  But it’s a fear that I expect and even relish at times, knowing that it is this fear that often spurs me on in trying to push the work in new directions.  Maybe it’s superstition but if I think that if I were too confident and without this fear the show might be a total disaster.

I can’t tell you how appreciative I am as an artist to have the inspiration that galleries like the Principle and the wonderful people  who come to these shows there provide.  Michele and her staff have always encouraged me in letting the work expand and grow through the years and the many people I have met over the years have provided me with a reassuring presence in the studio on those days when I am struggling and less than confident.  It is often like they are looking over my shoulder, wanting to see what is brewing.  I’ve said this before but I feel an obligation to really extend myself for these shows for these people.

I think  that this show meets that obligation and is a really strong group of work, one that I am proud of.  But I can’t judge it objectively.  Hopefully, others will let me know.  Hope you can make it to the show and  have a few minutes to talk.

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The painting at the top is part of this show and is titled Boundless.  It is a 20″ by 60″ canvas.

 

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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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Ascendant

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on May 13, 2013| 8 Comments »

GC Myers 2013 AscendantThis is a 24″ by 24″ canvas  that I finished yesterday.  I am still going back and forth on the  title between Ascendant and Ascent of Man.  Obviously, you could tell without seeing it that it has something to do with a hill, mountain or mound, which comes as no surprise for those of you who know my work.  Using a form of the word ascend denotes a climb of some sort,  either in actuality or metaphorically.  Both initially come  to  mind for me when I look at this piece.

Maybe it’s the way the hill rises from amid the verdant forest and river that brings the title Ascent of Man to mind.  While not necessarily in direct reference to  Charles Darwin‘s work, I definitely see a symbol  of an evolutionary nature in the way the path moves upward through a series of switchbacks, several houses perched on its edge as it rises denoting man  as he evolves  from the earth and water.  The golden sky breaking over the edge of the treeline adds a richness, a sense of fertility, that adds flavor to this whole stew.

The  Red Tree at the peak of the hill symbolizes the present, the now that is the culmination of all that has come before.  Evolution, ancestry, history– whatever you choose to call it– has brought each of us to our own personal peaks.  We are all the sum of all that has led each of us to the present moment.

I really enjoyed painting this piece.  That’s not to say that I don’t find enjoyment of some sort in every painting.  Just the sheer thrill of seeing something form before my eyes and under my hand is always enjoyable.  No, it’s a different type of enjoyment that I’m talking about here.  It felt complete even before it was completely laid out in the initial stage of composition as I worked on the underpainting.  It felt right and balanced from the start which allowed an excitement to grow, an anticipation of how the painting would form and change with each subsequent layer of paint.

It’s that excitement that I have talked about before when I describe what motivates me in the studio.   I have often said when asked about this that the most important thing for me is finding that thing that excites me in the work, that thing that makes me feel the piece is beyond me.  That is usually the sign for me that the work is going to excite others and that’s what I felt here.

But, as always, we will have to see about that…

 

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Part of the Pattern

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on May 6, 2013| 2 Comments »

GC Myers- Part of the Pattern

There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns.  Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns.  If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven’t recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can’t decipher.  What we can’t understand we call nonsense. What we can’t read we call gibberish.

–Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor

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I tend to agree with the snippet above from Chuck Palahniuk’s book.

Everything is built upon pattern.  Who we are and how we behave.  History.  Science.  Music and art.  It is all dictated by patterns.

Most of us don’t dwell too long on identifying patterns in the world around us and some of us will even refuse to acknowledge the predominance of pattern in the world, believing everything is random and chaotic.  I suppose that in itself is part of a pattern, a larger one that is so encompassing that we can’t see it from our vantage point within it.

 Just speculating there, of course.

I know that I am always looking for pattern, even when I’m not really looking.  I call it pattern, rhythm, flow, sense of rightness and other terms,  without knowing why I am drawn to this concept.  It just attracts me in that it is so much part of everything that there must surely be significance.

All of this flowed forward with this new painting, a 4″ by 17″ piece on paper that I’m calling Part of the Pattern.  It’s based on a theme I’ve used several times recently of pools rising through  a tall vertical picture plane like ladder rungs.  This particular piece was so much more stylized in its forms that it really became more about pattern than subject.  I see it both as a landscape and as some sort of underlying pattern that makes up the landscape.  A sort of DNA-like structure on which the world is built.  Whatever it is, it holds my eye and makes me keep searching for something in it.

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Strands

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

GCMyers- Strands smHere’s a new piece for my upcoming Principle Gallery show, a 6″ by 22″ painting on paper, that I call Strands.  It has a series of pools climbing upward toward another pool (or lake or sea) that has a distant horizon line while the Red Tree looks on from a hummock.  I’ve used this theme of  rising pools in the past year and find something really appealing in it, both from a design and an interpretive perspective.

I call this piece Strands because of the dual nature of the word strand, which can either be the land adjoining a body of water or a thin fiber.  The land part is obvious here but it is actually the path running upward between the pools that caught my eye.  I began to see the land here as representing the whole of the land forms on Earth and the pools as both the actual  bodies of water of the Earth as well as the genetic pools which we all sprang.  The path then became a connector between these pools, these beginnings of people.  Like a strand of DNA with the fields alongside acting as markers that designate an individual’s makeup.  The larger body at the top takes on greater significance, representing the infinity of time and space in its horizon.

Of course, as always, I must point out that this is just my own reading of this painting and even that is only conditional.  Sometimes, I look at this piece and  simply see a pleasant landscape with pleasing colors and forms.  And that is certainly good enough for me.

Maybe a cigar is sometimes just a cigar, as Freud is reported to have said.

Hey, this painting is shaped like an upright  stubby cigar.  Or is it?

 

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