As an artist who values a traditional approach to painting, George Czyrba has created a signature style formed through an amalgamation of art history, traditional styles, and techniques with influences from individual contemporary artists to compose his pieces.  With this such a large pool of knowledge and influences, he is able to create imagery and compositions that are a unique style all his own. George finds his way in striking a balance between being a “painterly painter” who is not afraid to push the limits of an impressionists palette.

      When viewing his body of work on a macro level, one can begin to see that there is an intentional stylistic approach with his choices in how he guides his viewers . One can begin to see the influence that art history has on his paintings when seeing his art on a broader level. Taking the individual parts over the whole will often leave a viewer believe that George’s a person interested in art deco, spectacle or nostalgia over something more conceptual or relevant to the history of painting.  

When looking at a larger scope of his work, a viewer can then begin to see that the hints of Renaissance Style Landscapes, color application of the impressionists, 1980’s art deco, modern Manga style portraits, Art Nouveau, primitivism, and the Hudson River School styles. George’s passion for landscapes and portraiture alike and in a similar rendering style give his audience a glimpse into things that show where his passions lie and it is not for one thing but for the world that surrounds him. 

    With his process, he approaches his subjects and compositions in a way that could be that of a photographer or a painter looking for the authenticity of “Art Naiveté.” George may form his compositions with the look of a documentarian in one moment and a sightseer on vacation in another, asking the view to question, “What is authentic.”  After setting his compositions, he then begins rendering his pieces with a stylistic process filled with vibrant color and strong broad brush strokes that is valued by painters who find true joy in the process of slinging paint.

      In his overarching body of work, George can be found simplifying complex manufactured structures and city scapes. His paintings can give the viewer a sense that he is depicting objects that are fabricated and synthetic with his choices to push the notion that these inorganic orderly forms can have an organic harmonious appearance. Giving the viewer the idea that they are engaging something more of a nature scape rather something that was created by the hands of man. 

       The intentional removal of humans from his landscapes permeates his landscapes and gives the viewer the idea that his landscapes resemble pieces that could be created through the Hudson River School but with a skyline as the focal point.

       George’s choices in rendering his landscapes is in a way that can give his viewers a sense of nostalgia.  Whether it is his home town of Cleveland, historical buildings that have fallen to ruin, ancient cities, towering trees or traditional landscapes, there is a sense of the artist’s own awe and wonder with the world around him conveyed to his audience. The simplification of his forms combined with his natural allow his audience to fill in some of the visual gaps and with the lack of details, it as if Georges intention is to allow the spectator to complete his paintings with their own memory or to have them to complete his paintings with their own narrative. 

      His pieces can bring a sense of nostalgia while to conveying to his viewers a perspective of a post apocalyptic landscape through the lens of an optimistic survivor.

      The romanticizing of city scapes and nature scapes in a similar fashion with a similar color pallet pushes the viewer to question the George’s choice in subject and technique chosen. The question that often comes to the forefront of my mind as I look at George’s body of work is one of existential meaning and what we place value upon with all that surrounds us.  As an individual navigates one’s environment, there is value in having the ability to find beauty in everyday concrete jungles and the constraints that are abundant with technological progression and societal constraints, but have we truly progressed? Is the beauty that can be observed with unique architectural achievements any more significant or majestic than that of a mountain, a creek or the profile of a tree? Is George directing his viewers to the concept that there is no hierarchy or objective definition of beauty or a visual hierarchy in this world?  

     There is one theme that seems to resonate throughout all of  George’s paintings and it is that beauty is subjective, in the eye of the beholder, and even the most banal of subjects can be alluring.

-MCz