Articulate and passionate, Point Loma artist Art Myers doesn’t attempt to separate emotion from his work. While recounting the time he spent documenting the lives of women and children across the country, Myers’ eyes seem to be constantly rewinding the vivid images he captured from behind his camera.
Myers is currently sharing several years of exceptional work with the public, some of which has never been shown before, in his new exhibit, “We are Women. See Us Rising!” at the Ordover Gallery in Solana Beach.
As a trained physician, Myers specializes in public health and preventive medicine. His dedication to the specialty landed him various management positions in hospitals over the years, and while this proved beneficial for his career, Myers felt like something was missing. That something would eventually fuel his photography and take him around the country.
“The medical world really provides no time for art appreciation; no time to read fine literature or study painting,” Myers said. “Doctors are trained to treat patients and work objectively; but I saw every dying patient that came through that hospital [in Florida].”
In the mid-1970’s, Myers decided it was time to experience life from a different angle. He took a sabbatical from medicine, though by no means was it a vacation. Instead of purchasing flights around the world to quiet safe-havens, he bought a 41-foot ketch and took to the sea with his wife and three of their four children, making the two-mast sailboat their home for the next 10 years.
“Sometimes you have to take your life into your own hands,” Myers said.

Upon return to life on land, Myers gradually immersed himself in photography. While largely self-taught, he participated in a correspondence course and in several workshops around the world with an enclave of talented photographers, including Annie Liebovitz, Arnold Newman and Larry Fink.
Myers current exhibit is also a journey, primarily told by women living in shelters or on welfare, with Aids or breast cancer. It is an amalgamation of works from projects he dedicated to breast cancer, AIDS and ovarian cancer, as well as photographs from a project he took on nearly 10 years ago at a San Diego Rescue Mission for women.

The collection of black and white photographs depict women who had overcome or were still enduring great hardships, capturing images of them at home, at the doctor’s office, in a shelter.

“I really tried to use environmental aspects from their lives here to tell these women’s stories,” Myers said. “The message intended is that these women come from all angles of life.”
Myers began his photographic exploration several years ago when commissioned by Pfeizer to photograph women living with HIV all over the world. A particularly evocative image from that series and included in the Ordover exhibit depicts a Puerto Rican mother with her 15-year-old daughter. The mother has AIDS and had not yet disclosed that information to her daughter upon Myers’ arrival. She did so while Myers was there in a very intimate, emotional exchange, said Myers.

After that experience, Myers reached out to children with the same ailment in Nairobi, Africa, documenting and living in an orphanage.
Upon returning to the U.S., Myers and San Diego’s dance genius, Gene Isaac, put together a production that raised $15,000 in honor of children living with HIV. Isaac choreographed a unique memorial dance as tribute, and Myers photographed the whole affair. The series was displayed at the Museum of Photographic Arts in 2001. Both the dance and the event itself were called “The Song Nyumbani.”
Though Myers stopped practicing medicine a long time ago, he is still committed to caring for his subjects by eliciting compassion from those who view his photographs, and he still remembers every wrinkle, in every smile, of every woman and child that he encountered.
“We live beyond our infirmities and misfortunes and are in control of our lives and our destinies,” Myers said. “We ask you to peer into our faces and our environments and celebrate the strength of our resolve, for we are truly survivors. We are Women. See us rising!”
A full exhibit is on display until Oct. 15 at the Ordover Project, 444 South Cedros Avenue, Studio 172.
In addition to Myers’ work, the gallery will also feature work by Becca Seminou (“Inner Reflections”). The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. For more information on the Ordover Project, call (858) 720-1121 or visit www.ordoverproject.com.