Featured Artist Wendell Myers

Wendell Myers creates spontaneous, abstract landscapes that pop with dynamic color. See more of his work by visiting his website.

 

Both music and art have always been very important to me, and both play an integral part in my life now.

 

 

I played semi-professionally in a blues/rock band as a teenager, but quit when it was time for college.  I went to art school in Milwaukee in the ‘70s, and spent the next years as a studio potter.

 

 

Since then, life has taken me down different paths, but over the last decade I have found myself returning to both music and painting.

 

 

In both music and art, I am very interested in improvisation.  I paint spontaneously, without a plan, letting the painting take me where it will go.

 

 

I start by applying color to the canvas and see what happens, I respond with more color or texture, watch, react, paint some more, respond.  This is a lot like jazz; listening, reacting and playing simultaneously.

 

 

My goal is not to totally control what emerges, but to influence it; to allow, to a degree, the paint to do what it will.  Often, in music or art, it is the unexpected result which is the most expressive and most enjoyable.

 

 

My paintings are abstract landscapes.  Within the language of landscape, I am using motion, light, color and energy to evoke an emotional state, to create a sense of mystery.

 

 

Music inspires me; I always have music on when I paint.  It might be jazz, blues, classical piano, world music; usually it’s a mix of everything.

 

 

Also nature, the landscape, particularly wide-open spaces, expansive vistas.  I am a true flatlander, having spent much of my childhood in the Great Plains of Nebraska, Kansas and South Dakota, so big sky and open spaces turn me on.

 

 

In March, 2013, I will be the featured artist at SaxArt Gallery in Saxapahaw North Carolina.  Although I have plenty of work on hand, I would like the core of this show to be new work, so I am hoping to complete 6 to 12 strong pieces in time for that event.