Painting the resonance of place

I’m Wendell Myers, and I paint abstract landscapes. My work begins in memory of places I’ve lived in or spent time with, and develops through improvisation.

I’m less interested in describing a scene than in translating how a place feels once it’s settled into memory.

From clay to color

I spent much of the ‘70s in art school, earning a BFA before working for several years as a ceramic artist. Clay taught me early on that control is limited. You can influence what happens, sometimes strongly—but you never fully determine the outcome. The kiln always has the last word.

When I returned to art years later, this time through painting, that idea came with me. Painting has an immediacy that clay doesn’t: act, respond, adjust. What happens next depends on how well you’re paying attention.

Improvisation

I’ve always been drawn to jazz and to the way musicians listen and respond in real time. Painting works much the same way for me. I put something down, see what it does, and decide what needs to happen next.

I don’t start with a fixed image. I start with a direction and let the painting develop from there. I believe in improvisation—in allowing the painting to take me where it needs to go. I prefer to influence, rather than control, the outcome.

Ways of seeing

For many years I practiced as a diagnostic radiologist. It’s a very different field on the surface, but in some ways it echoes what I first learned in art school, how to really look.

Both trained me to pay attention to subtle shifts in tone, pattern, and structure, and to understand that what’s visible is only part of the story. That way of seeing carries over into my painting.

Memory and place

After my wife’s death in 2021, painting became more central to my life. The studio was a place to keep working, to stay engaged, and over time, to rediscover a sense of light. The work isn’t about loss directly, but it does carry an awareness of fragility and renewal.

The landscapes in my work come from a lifetime of movement: the Great Plains and lake country of my youth, the Carolina mountains and coast, the desert Southwest, and extended time spent in Poland and elsewhere in Europe.

Residencies in Santa Fe and France gave me the chance to look more closely and more slowly. Even when I’m back in the studio, those places remain present. Memory has its own kind of geography.

The work

I work primarily in acrylic. Color is the main driver, and the paintings evolve through layers by adding, scraping back, and allowing earlier decisions to remain visible.

I want the work to hold both energy and stillness; to feel immediate, but not loud. Each painting begins with memory, but imagination and improvisation take it somewhere else. I want viewers to bring their own experience to it—to recognize something without needing to name it.

Explore

You can explore current work in Original Paintings, follow along on Instagram, or join my mailing list for updates on exhibitions, new work, and open-studio events.s.