Mindfulness Highway

Paintings by Layne Meacham • Exhibit runs from August 13th to September 23rd 2022

ARTIST STATEMENT: “Mindfulness Highway 2022” is not a body of work as Edwin Twombly and Robert Rauschenberg suggested that “need not express anything at all, except itself”. On the contrary, Mindfulness Highway is intended to trigger the thousand experiences we have all had driving endlessly down the highways to arrive at an odd or beautiful place; however, I try to stress shape, color and most of all texture. Once we arrive at the destinations of wonder we seem to forget the highway, how it hypnotized us by staring forever at the lines on the highway as we sailed along, and all of the odds and ends we viewed on the way to the destinations, and the gas stations, quicky marts where we bought soda, coffee, chips, etc.; where we had our kids say over and over “are we there yet.” We now solely focus on the national geographic destination we were expected to go to so we could tell our friends we were there.

On another level, we never really see asphalt up close, even inches away. I find that the asphalt is very interesting and even beautiful. Here I have placed the road on a white wall in contrast to the black asphalt, which likely has never been seen in a gallery before in this fashion. Here the viewer is welcome to touch or even rub the road and the stripes. I also was thinking of Bogota, Colombia with a population of over 9,000,000 people, which I am fond of, and have visited quite frequently. Approximately 1,000,000 a day ride their bicycles every day in Bogota to their jobs or schools. You can rub the bicyclists painted on the asphalt and closely examine and contemplate the many times the long distances some cyclists travel every day in Utah.

ARTIST BIO: Layne Richard Meacham was born in Murray, Utah in 1948. Meacham is an abstract painter, he uses mixed-media, oil, or acrylics, cement and concrete to paint his paintings.

He began studying art at his junior high school with David Chaplin (artist, educator, and former University professor) who also provided him with private classes. At that time, he also took many classes at the Salt Lake Art Barn, now known as the Finch Lane Gallery (1963-1967). He then dropped out of public school to paint. In 1967 he went into the Marine Corps and was sent to Vietnam. After receiving the Bronze Star, he returned to Utah to pursue a degree. As an undergraduate he studied under Don Doxey at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, doing still life and figure drawing. He also took classes ate the Salt Lake Art Center. While pursuing his Master in social work at Columbia University, he attended classes at the Arts Student League in New York City. Due to family health concerns he transferred to the University of Utah where he continued to take art classes while completing his MSW. Meacham is now a licensed psychotherapist.

Layne likes to travel to glean ideas for new projects. He has visited Bogota, Colombia and explored its rich, diverse landscape. Upon his return to Utah, he displayed many colored paintings at Finch Lane that documented his adventures in South America’s Andes Mountains, and more particularly the handbill-ridden walls of Bogota that still have a resounding “Viva Che Vive”. His work is powerful enough and big enough to really cast a mood. And yet, there is a quality of innocence to his work in juxtaposition to his difficult life experiences.

In regards to his adventure in Latin America and his show at the Finch Lane Gallery, Meacham says, “Since and early adolescence which was fraught with stress, my only real and complete redemption from the catastrophic consequences of boredom has been, and always will be, to make art. Of course, I also do it for all the cliché classical psychological reasons: art-making acts as a release valve for neurosis and so on. Sublimation has always driven the process.” He went on to say that his work has evolved from the days of the old Art Barn in 1963, when he looked toward the masters and tried to imitate them. “I did great Deffebach /de Kooning/ Olson/Snow knock-offs for years. Nowadays I hope that I don´t mimic these art icons, however, of course I appropriate from all of them and Picasso. Diebenkorn and Kandinsky as little as possible. I believe that I have evolved pretty much into a less derivative Meacham style which I try to keep as spontaneous, unplanned and immediate as possible.” Meacham hopes that his art will not be boring to those looking at it. He quotes Jean Dubuffet, the French painter, “Artists who bore us are just like those professional inventors who have never invented anything. It’s unfortunate for them, the poor wretches. If they have wasted their lives studying and researching in their laboratories, without ever finding anything.”

However, Meacham adds, “if the viewer is bored with my work, I was not bored making it!”

Excerpts taken from Robert Olpin’s Utah Artists films series and book co-authored with Siefert and Swanson, Utah Artists. Also, from the Finch Lane Gallery Exhibition in 2005.