e and color, Geoffrey Meredith's paintings embody the light-filled spaces he's inspired by. Working on recent urban scenes, the shadows of buildings and open sky have formal elements, although his approach is intuitive and skilled. As he says, "sometimes a painting will stay pretty representational; other times it will end up much more abstract. At some point in the process the painting takes over, and it goes where it wants to go." JAN 9, 2015
Geoffrey Meredith Studio Visit
Rich in texture and color, Geoffrey Meredith's paintings embody the light-filled spaces he's inspired by. Working on recent urban scenes, the shadows of buildings and open sky have formal elements, although his approach is intuitive and skilled. As he says, "sometimes a painting will stay pretty representational; other times it will end up much more abstract. At some point in the process the painting takes over, and it goes where it wants to go."
e and color, Geoffrey Meredith's paintings embody the light-filled spaces he's inspired by. Working on recent urban scenes, the shadows of buildings and open sky have formal elements, although his approach is intuitive and skilled. As he says, "sometimes a painting will stay pretty representational; other times it will end up much more abstract. At some point in the process the painting takes over, and it goes where it wants to go." 
I have painted all my life. My mother was a well-known artist in Pittsburgh where I grew up, and I majored in Art at Princeton University. I did post-graduate work at The Hellenic Institute in Athens, Greece and while there met a California girl. Five years later I had a choice of getting a Masters in Cambridge, MA or in Palo Alto. Since that girl lived in Redwood City, it was an easy choice. We were married a year later (and still are!). I then embarked on a career in advertising., although I was more in the marketing and copywriting side than art direction. Today, while I’m a principal in two start-ups, painting takes precedence.
How does a painting start for you? Where do you draw inspiration from?
I look for scenes that seem to encapsulate the essence of a particular location – sort of the one vista that communicates and implies a lot more than just what you see. Then I look for the elements that in form and color are pleasing to the eye. Often I have to manipulate those elements (adjust a field or mountain, add a tree, etc.) to achieve this, but it's best if I don’t have to.
Your abstractions of landscapes and urban scenes distill the chaos into something much more serene – does this speak to how you experience the world?
I suppose I yearn for order in the visual world, although I’m also striving for a sort of tension. The San Francisco cityscapes stem from the wonderful light there, and the tension and interplay of the neutral-colored rectilinear buildings and shadows, and the softer, more chromatic forms of the trees and water. Light and shadow are also the foundation of most of the landscapes.
We talked about some of your recent travels, especially an ambitious trip to Africa. How are you able to bring
those experiences into the studio?
It’s hard for me to say how the Africa experience has (or hasn’t) influenced my art. The paintings I’ve started that try represent the landscapes and animals have not been very successful. The only one that’s worked for me is a large, abstract-expressionist piece, which represents a feeling or gestalt about the whole experience, not a particular scene. Maybe when
I put a little more distance between me and the trip I’ll be able to distill it better.
You have two distinct ways of working, although both abstract, one is working from observation and the other is
not. Tell us more about the different experience of working on these bodies of work.

As you note, I currently work in two distinctly different styles. They are both somewhat derivative, and both styles harken back to the days when I was “coming of age.” One style, which has been variously called “Mid-Century Modern” or “Representational Abstraction” is a 21st Century reinterpretation of the “Bay Area Figurative Movement” of the 1950s and ‘60s in San Francisco and Berkeley. Mostly landscapes and cityscapes, these works are grounded in representation, then abstracted to distill form and color.
Sometimes a painting will stay pretty representational; other times it will end up much more abstract. At some point in the process the painting takes over, and it goes where it wants to go.
The other style uses as a touchstone Abstract Expression paintings, also of the 1950’s and ‘60s and mainly done in New York. I worked almost exclusively in this style when I first came to the Bay Area in the 1970’s, and exhibited at that time
in two galleries (both now long gone) in downtown San Francisco. These are larger non-objective abstract gestural works
that strive to be graphic archetypes that can communicate across time and culture. Aside from the graphic power and
appeal of this style of painting, I have an intellectual interest in this format. This stems from his Princeton thesis on the
nature of the creative process, and his correspondence I had with Joan Miro and meetings and correspondence with Salvador Dali that were input to that thesis.
Where can we see your work in the Bay area and beyond?
I am currently represented by the Christopher Hill Galleries in St. Helena, and in Healdsburg; by the Slate Contemporary Gallery in Oakland; by the Lafayette Art Gallery in Lafayette; and by the Valley Art Gallery in Walnut Creek.
I am also the Director of Marketing and Publicity for the Lafayette Art Gallery, on the Board of Directors of the Valley Art Gallery, and am a Commissioner of the Contra Costa County Arts and Culture Commission.
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California Fly fisher, March, 2013