Easel at Killick River, Pangnirtung, Canada. All images courtesy of the artist.
I didn’t actually work on the production of this book ( I was with newborn at the time) but I’ve been working with Mike a lot since this baby was born. If you aren’t familiar with his painting, I’d suggest it’s time to get acquainted. Mike Glier is represented by Gerald Peters gallery in New York and Santa Fe. He is also a professor of art at Williams College, which, I guess, allows him to trapse off into these swaths of landscape for extended periods of time (something not all of us can do). Just picture yourself with an easel, your laptop, and a giant backpack — oh, let’s say, in the Amazon jungle of Ecuador, or next to wildlife in Botswana.
The interesting thing is these are not just stand alone, pretty travel images that have no correlation to one another. These works are the basis of an ongoing project using the web of geography as a connection between canvases. In Along A Long Line (which Hard Press Editions turned into a book) Glier was curious about the longitudinal line (70th) that sits under his studio. He got out a map and followed that line to see what else was on it, and then, a project was born: the Antarctic, New York City, the Amazon and St. Johns Virgin Islands all sit in close relativity to that line. With weekly reports from the front lines, Glier was putting together canvases, doing sketches for some he’s work on later on metal, and taking photos. The connections and variations on landscape, vegetation insects made for an explosive color palette and a 21st century artist’s perspective on a very Darwinian approach to planet earth. After you look at the book, and Glier’s paintings, you not only have a different take on the planet earth, you also appreciate the uniqueness of its diversity.
(And right now, all I can think about is BP and those millions of barrels of crude oil pouring into the ocean,ravishing the eco-system for years to come. Mike Glier’s paintings take on a whole new meaning, now. Talk about accelerated environmental changes.)
This summer, Mike Glier is in Hawaii — the second segment of his current project entitled Antipodes. The antipode for Hawaii is Botswana, where he spent several weeks last summer. You can see weekly updates here:
It’s an amazing diary and complement to the paintings that are produced simultaneously. He’ll be in a group show in September at the Cue Foundation in NYC: That is Then. This is Now. He’ll be signing copies of Along A Long Line at the opening reception, September 9th at 6PM. I hope you can make it.
Since the publication of this book, Mike Glier has been featured on NPR’s Here and Now and also in Bomb Magazine, just to name a few.