GC Myers and West End Gallery Celebrate 25 years together!
GC Myers and West End Gallery Celebrate 25 years together!
New Exhibit “From a Distance” featuring new paintings by GC Myers.
Opening Day Friday, July 17 from
Noon – 7:00pm.
Appointments are not necessary but highly recommended since there are capacity limitations. Please call 607-936-2011 or reserve a time through our Facebook Event.
On exhibit: July 17- Aug 27, 2020
West End Gallery
12 West Market St., Corning, NY
*Exhibit will also debut online on Opening Day for those who prefer to enjoy the exhibit from home.
We’re excited to announce our newest exhibit, “From a Distance” by GC Myers. Opening Day is on Friday, July 17th from Noon – 7:00 p.m. The public is invited to visit the gallery to celebrate GC Myers and West End Gallery’s 25 years together! Appointments are not necessary, but highly recommended since we have capacity limitations. Please call 607-936-2011 or reserve a time through our Facebook Event.
GC Myers began exhibiting at West End Gallery in 1995 and is one of the Gallery’s most popular artists. His work is in numerous collections throughout the US and beyond. In addition to being represented by West End Gallery, Myers’ work is exhibited in several other galleries across the country. His work has been featured in American Art Collector Magazine several times. He was interviewed on the popular Out of Bounds program for NPR by Tish Pearlman and was featured on PBS for Artists Café. Myers’ work is readily recognized by the viewer as he has recurring images that are associated with his work—the red tree, red-roofed houses, a red chair, and paths leading through the landscape.
In his artist’s statement, Myers begins with a quote by
Antoine de Saint-Exupery: “But I know that nothing
which truly concerns man is calculable, weighable, measurable. True distance is
not the concern of the eye; it is granted only to the spirit.” –Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Airman’s Odyssey
Myers then goes on to say, “I stumbled across the line’s above
in a beautiful passage from a book, Airman’s Odyssey, from Antoine de Saint-Exupery. He
was an author/poet best known for his classic The Little Prince as well as a pioneering aviator. He
died in 1944, while flying for the Free
French Air Force in World War II.
In this passage de Saint-Exupery writes about how flying at high altitudes, landmarks on the ground become mere dots and all sense of distance fades away, is lost. He describes how in his blindness to those places, those dots lost in the distance, his thirst for feelings and sensations attached to those dots grows.
Those barely visible dots become much like smells and sounds and other sensations that reawaken memories and new tracks of thought in the imagination. It is in this vast expanse of nothingness that he realizes that everything that we seek is not to be found by moving across wide physical distances but by simply spanning the distances within ourselves.
As I said, it’s a beautiful passage and it goes well beyond what I describe here. But for my purposes I am focusing on this part of the passage, that we often seek things in the distance that we desire when what we really need has already crossed all distances and, in fact, dwells within us.
We always see the dots in the distance and can easily attach great and better things to those dots. But while doing so, we often overlook the fact that we have those same things at hand right now.
We so often desire what we already have.
The recent isolation brought on by the pandemic here has created a sense of distance in many of us. That’s understandable. It has kept us away from many people, places and events, those things that have normally made up our day to day lives. But they now are dots to us and we long to cross that distance to return to that time and place.
For many, this desire to cross that distance has been consuming. But for some, looking inward has diminished that desire and they have found that they can find what they need where they are in the moment. The dot is just a dot now.
I think this idea that we have what we need, that we are equipped to survive and even thrive despite the distances imposed upon us, has become the theme for my solo show that opens on July 17 at the West End Gallery. The show is titled From a Distance.
Wherever we are, in any time and situation, we have the ability to find forms of beauty within and around ourselves. That is an important thing to remember, especially when we find ourselves staring at those dots in the distance.”
“From a Distance” will be on exhibit from July 17 through August 27. The exhibit is free and open to the public at West End Gallery, 12 West Market Street, Corning, NY 607-936-2011
info@westendgallery.net www.westendgallery.net Gallery hours are: Monday-Thursday 10-5:30, Friday 10-8, Saturday 10-5, Sunday 12-5. West End Gallery represents more than 50 exceptional regional artists whose work may be viewed in the Upstairs Gallery located on the second floor of West End Gallery.