GC Myers, 1959 ~ Stylized Symbolic Landscapes

A self-taught painter GC Myers, is a modern painter of “internal” landscapes, evocative compositions that reflect the synthesis of numerous schools of influence- Eastern philosophy, American Regionalist and Modernist paintings, Abstract-Expressionism, Art Nouveau and on and on. His ability to draw from many and diverse sources results in a world of creation that is truly unique, speaking with a vocabulary that is, at once, both personal and universal. Myers’ use of simplistic design, bold coloration and stylized rendering transforms the natural landscape into one that resonates with human emotions and qualities.

In the Finger Lakes region of western New York, I grew up in a family that was struggling to make it into the middle-class. The idea of being an artist didn't even seem possible, even though I had felt a desire to express myself from an early age. My parents were encouraging but didn't know how to get me the instruction and direction needed so I tried different ways to express myself-- writing, drawing, wood carving, screen-printing and leatherwork, among other things. But nothing ever fully engaged me, satisfied the yen inside. So the urge was put aside for many years as I pursued a wide range of jobs in my early adulthood. I worked as a candy cook/ union steward in a factory, I swept chimneys and built swimming pools, even having my own pool business for several years. I worked as a day laborer, a car salesman and, finally, as a waiter in a pancake house in my mid-thirties. The idea of being an artist was nowhere on my radar.

At that time, I was building a home for my wife and myself in a piece of woods we had bought several years before. One day, while working on the house alone, my ladder slipped from under me and sent me plummeting to the ground, sixteen feet below. I shattered my wrist and knocked out some teeth and was out of the pancake house for a few months. During that time, I pulled out some old airbrush paints from a prior failed attempt at expression and began using them with a brush pushed into my cast.

Something had changed. I saw a glimmer of possibility for expression in the paint that had been missing in all previous attempts. There was a discernible rhythm and harmony in the paint now. I began painting obsessively, each new attempt pushing me to the next. I was following my own instincts with the materials I chose, trying to find those materials and mediums that fit the way I felt my mind was seeing things and working, rather than trying to make my mind fit the way the mediums would traditionally be used. This period of experimenting and self-teaching was the beginning of a personal style that would blossom in the next few years.

After a year of obsessive painting, I showed my work to the owners of a local gallery, the West End Gallery, in Corning. They saw something they liked in the work and asked me if I could have work ready for their upcoming group show. That was February of 1995. Three years later, I was a regular seller in several galleries and, after a large commission for a new Corning Inc. facility, had the confidence to make the leap to full-time painter.

My work has its own visual vocabulary that helps evoke the emotion that I am trying to convey rather than a sense of specific place. I have become well known by collectors for my signature Red Trees as well as several other series that include Red Roofs, Red Chairs and the Archaeology series of recent years.

Since I first started showing my paintings back in 1995, I have had 40 solo exhibitions of my work at galleries around the country. In 2012, I had my first solo West Coast show as well as my first solo museum exhibition at the prestigious Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, NY. My work has been collected around the world and has hung in the American Embassies in Nepal and Uganda.

I am married to my high-school sweetheart, Cheri, and have a home and studio in the Horseheads, NY area. I am represented by the West End Gallery in Corning, NY; the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA; the Kada Gallery in Erie, PA; and the Just Looking Gallery in San Luis Obispo, CA.