I TRY TO TREAT IT LIKE IT IS SOMEWHAT LIKE A PHOTO SHOOT, BUT IT’S LIKE A PHOTO SHOOT OF SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T EXIST.”
Both caricature and photography play roles in Myers’ paintings as well. “I love the art of caricature, where you’re trying to highlight somebody’s features that make them unique,” he says. “A lot of those times, those are usually considered ugly. It’s fun to mess around with
the idea of what that is, but also to be able to represent it in a way that isn’t really poking fun at it.”
That’s where balance comes into play. “I really love the idea of balance. In everything that I do, I try to approach it in a balanced way,” says Myers. “This might be grotesque, but how can I feature it in a beautiful way so that it still stays in the center, so that it doesn’t go off kilter. I think that’s a very helpful way of approaching it. So I love the idea of caricature, but I wouldn’t want it to be a caricature for the sake of being a caricature. That’s just a part of the formula.”
Photography is essential when Myers builds his references. “I use a multitude of different references when it comes to drawings. Found photos online. I’ll take my own photos,” he says. “I do collages of everything, digitally, on Photoshop to make sure that everything makes total sense lighting-wise and form-wise and everything. I try to treat it like it is somewhat like a photo shoot, but it’s like a photo shoot of something that doesn’t exist.
One of his first pieces for the series was “Melancholy Paulie,” a portrait of a teenager with a wavy blonde bob with Dutch Boy bangs holding a small dog with very similar hair. “That was extremely intentional,” says Myers of the resemblance between the teen and his pet. “Originally, when I started working on the show, I was thinking that it would be fun to have a majority of them be portraits with animals where the hair resembles each other. Where there’s basically some relationship between the two. I didn’t go down that path fully, but I’m probably going to explore that more in the next show that’s coming up.”
Another standout from the series is “Stinkpot Susie,” a dark-haired girl dressed in ‘90s indie rock fashion who scowls as she holds a pot with a corpse flower and several other pungent plants. “I like the idea that somebody doesn’t know that they’re stinky plants, that it goes over their head and it just looks like regular plants,” says Myers, “but if they know what stinky plants are, it’s something that could connect with them.”
At the time of this interview, Myers was already starting work on his 2024 solo show. “What I’m trying to do right now is trying to be extremely critical of what worked and what didn’t work on the group of paintings that I did for Perfectly Normal,” he says.
With Perfectly Normal, Myers had custom frames made for the works. In his forthcoming show, he plans to make paintings to fit the frames that he is in the process of acquiring. “I’m going to different flea markets every weekend and I’m trying to pick up old frames. Going to different thrift shops,” he says. “Trying to find cool frames on eBay and try to create the pieces based off interesting frames. I think that would have a more natural element when it comes to approaching how big something should be.”
With both a full-time job and his art to manage, Myers maintains a pretty tight schedule.
“I have a love/hate relationship with being busy,” says Myers. He often starts the day with a trip to the gym. “If I’m going to be isolated and painting and in my head a lot, I have to balance that with being extroverted and going to the gym and focus on my mental health and physical well-being,” he says. “That helps so much with being able to paint for hours on end.”
Since Myers teaches art and often has small classes, he can sometimes get in some work on his iPad as the students make their own art. “It’s nice to have that synergy with them,” he says. After school, he allocates time for painting. “Usually, I get home from work around four-ish,” he says. “The goal is to paint for at least three or four hours a night and then I’ll get dinner and go to bed and then I wake up and do it again on the weekdays.”
Even though he tries to keep his weekends open, there’s still a lot on his plate. “Socially speaking, trying to paint and having a full-time job is extremely difficult,” he adds, “but I’m very thankful for the small group of friends that I do have that are very creative and support me and know that I’ll be gone for a little bit because I’m doing my things.”*
This article originally appeared in Hi-Fructose 69, which is available in print here.