Featured Artist | Greta Myers
The March Exhibit at Sager Braudis Gallery includes work by painter Greta Myers from her series titled Misplaced Places. An alluring palette and intriguing variety of abstract mark-making reward the viewer who spends some time in front of each piece. Gallery Director Hannah Reeves asks Greta Myers about the inspiration and thought behind this series in this Featured Artist entry. See Myers’s work in person through March 31st.
REEVES: I know that you draw on imagery from social media for your work, or at least that you’re thinking about the highly-filtered, highly-curated sets of images people put forth. Could you talk about how that leads you to make the paintings that you make? Are you actually recreating some found images?
MYERS: I scan social media (Instagram) looking for images of vacation or travel photos from accounts that typically don’t involve travel. It’s important to me that I find people that travel isn’t a profession for. I seem to relate to what they see. I look at previous posts to see recurring patterns. I read the text that goes with the images. I am often drawn to people looking for an escape. Once I begin painting, I will reference color, and line within the image. From there I begin thinking about the family/individual on the travel. I sorta put myself in their spot. How do they see what they see? How do I see what they see? I go from there.
REEVES: Do these works relate more to non-objective abstraction, or to landscape (or to neither or both?)
MYERS: I don’t think about non-objective abstraction at all. I am just recording the basics of what I see and feel when I look at their accounts. Not every reference is a landscape. I’ve used concerts, births, interior spaces as reference. Anything that comes up in their travel.
REEVES: What do you hope strikes viewers about your work? That is to say, what do you hope people think about when they view it?
MYERS: I want them to look at it and hope they don’t think I’m hiding dick pics.
It’s nice when they like it.
REEVES: Who are your art-world influences?
MYERS: Contemporary: Alex Kanevsky. (He recently started following me on Instagram. I can die happy). Mara Hoffman. Clothing designer. Joseph Shelter, painter
REEVES: I always like to ask: What is your studio quirk?
MYERS: Drink three cups of coffee before I begin. I listen to hip hop and old school rap. Don’t talk to me when I am painting. That makes me yell at you. Your fault, not mine. Asshole?