Christopher Myott

Chris Myott in his home studio, winter 2018. Courtesy of the artist.

Christopher Myott grew up in Jaffrey, NH, before studying painting in Boston. After graduating, he returned home and bought a rundown 19th-century house with his wife Becky. Myott (who speaks lovingly of wabi-sabi and decay and learned carpentry from his father) took out walls, added wood stoves, and, in the barn attached to the house, raised the second floor and poured concrete on the first to create a motorcycle shop.

Motorcycles and art-making have always gone hand in hand for Myott. As a kid he customized bicycles and as a high school senior, bought his first motorcycle because, he says with a laugh, he “wanted to be cool and badass.” He took motorcycles apart to learn how they worked, and “of course, painted them.” Today, Myott’s shop has three working motorcycles: one for the 10-minute ride to Rite Aid, another for the hour to Walmart and the third for the highway.
Everything in Myott’s house is part of a gestalt whole. While he paints in a sun-filled room in the northeast corner, the entire house, it seems, is his studio. He spends his days running back and forth between his bikes, his paintings and his picture frame and furniture woodshop on the second floor of the barn.
Myott paints abstractions, portraits, plants, baseball cards and hand tools, but it is the motorcycles that dominate. The bikes become artful objects in his still lifes. Myott is drawn to plants and motorcycles because of their complex forms, which he tries to simplify in order to capture their essence. He marvels at the alien quality of plants and the freedom their forms give him. (“You can make it up as you go and they still look plant-like,” he says.) He had a similar experience paring down motorcycle shapes when he was first painting them.

The paintings go deeper, though. If motorcycles have ever been associated with masculinity, Myott tries to break down that old stereotype by pairing them on equal terms with plants and various other items—like vases—as beautiful, organic shapes. Once, when he went to pick up a wood stove, the owner had a stunning collection of Japanese pottery. The simple shape of the vases and their blank spaces, or canvasses, struck Myott. He created a series of paintings with bikes on vases, where the smaller surface forced him to be more gestural with his strokes.

Beyond the subject matter of Myott’s work, his surfaces are meticulous. Everything is done by hand, including straight lines (which aren’t quite straight). He uses an array of palette knives to create textures, and he draws through wet paint to make his signature marks. At the end, he applies a beeswax coating to his panels, deepening their tone and texture. The technique, which he learned making furniture with an elderly New Hampshire friend, gives his paintings a patina of age. They coalesce into a harmonious composite that makes room for the plants, motorcycles, hand tools, and vases to feel like they have always existed together in the same scene.

Chris Myott, Dark Hearted, 35 x 24″, oil and wax on panel.

Jaffrey is the center of Myott’s life, community, love of motorcycles and art (which he sells in white box galleries, at high-end motorcycle events and barters with locals). In 2018, he hosted his first annual Worklife event at his home—an intimate art, music and open studio event that challenges the idea that work and life should be separate endeavors. That night, he told a story of how the owner of the Jaffrey art store had helped him attend art school by donating him supplies. Years later, when the store was being torn down, Myott was there talking with the owner about motorcycles. The owner told him there was a broken ‘50s BMW in the basement. He said Myott could keep it in exchange for cleaning the basement. Myott cleaned the space, fixed the bike and rode it back as a gift. The owner was so grateful he let Myott keep the bike and gave him two more—which Myott took back to his shop and, presumably, got right to painting.

Corwin Levi is a mixed-media, project-based artist based in Harrisville, NH. He draws inspiration from his travels, having lived in 18 cities across 12 states. He has a BA from Rice University, an MFA from the Tyler School of Art and a JD from the University of Virginia.