John Moyers
Capable hands
Summer 2020 will be known for many, many things. For artists, they’ll remember the productive—and often uninterrupted—work that was done in the studio. “These lockdowns have just made us all more productive,” says painter John Moyers from his California studio. “There’s just nothing else to do but paint.”
For Moyers, who has a new solo show at Maxwell Alexander Gallery opening August 8 in Los Angeles, this productive period has led to some exciting new paintings, including several large ones. “Yeah, I’ve been working big. I used to do a lot of big paintings, but after we moved from New Mexico to California I just couldn’t wrap my head around the big ones. But now I’ve got this big studio and lots of time and the big ones are coming together easily,” he says, adding that large paintings provide more freedom for an artist. “The smaller the brushes the smaller the brushstrokes, but in a big painting you can really move the paint around.”
Some of Moyers’ new works include Native American chief portraits, as well as groupings of Native American figures, and also Treacherous Trail, which shows a Mexican vaquero riding through the desert. ”I’m really enjoying these Mexican figures from the late
1800s,” the artist adds.
In another work, The Ancient Forest, Moyers shows a line of horses and riders as they descend down a hill in a thick stand of trees that cut vertical lines through the composition. Clusters of yellow and orange leaves suggest a fall scene, perhaps somewhere near Taos, New Mexico.
Moyers has long championed a “less is more” aesthetic with his brushstrokes. Detail is suggested, never emphasized. But the suggestion of technique or brushwork, especially at this stage of his career, it just doesn’t factor into his work, Moyers says. “I’ve been painting so long that I can just focus on what I want to say with each individual painting. I don’t even think about technique, because it’s easier to just paint a picture,” he says. “When you’re young you don’t have the ability to paint the things that in your head. But now that part comes easy. Now I’m just limited by the ideas in my head, not by my capabilities as an artist.”
Moyers’ new show will be on view through August 22.