Michael MILLER
Michael Miller, born in Glasgow, Scotland, trained in painting and drawing in Italy, Switzerland, and Mozambique. On moving to the USA in 2010, he studied abstract painting, drawing, and assemblage at the Art Students League of New York. In 2012, he was awarded the League’s Matisse Estate Merit Scholarship, and in 2014, he was selected as a visiting artist at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In January 2016, Michael moved to Santiago, Chile, where he lived and worked until July 2017.
Miller is trained as a social scientist, having studied at the Universities of Edinburgh, Leicester, and Pennsylvania, as well as the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. In 2001, he earned a Ph.D. in contemporary history from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. A long-standing supporter of human rights, Miller has published work on a range of issues including violence against children, gender-based violence, and the prevention of torture.
In addition to his art practice, Miller has been actively involved in community-based public art projects and has supported several arts-based non-profit organizations as a volunteer artist. He is also a respected member of the art community, having served on the board of the Society of Scottish Artists. He is currently based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Truth Exists, Again
Essay by Francesca MarcaccioMichael Miller's art unites mastery, mystery, simplicity, and contradiction. His methodical working process combines intense deliberation and experimentation, obsessive craft, cycles of revision and repetition, and decisive shifts of direction.
"Between the Lines," Michael Miller's solo exhibition at Jeeum Gallery, presents a series of paintings that delves into the relationship between personal experiences and societal ideas of truth and falsehood through the use of dazzle camouflage as visual language. The artworks in "Between the Lines" are deceptively simple but reveal complexity upon closer inspection.
Miller's works are connected by an underlying autobiographical thread, reflecting his personal experiences of growing up in Glasgow during the decline of the city's shipyards and heavy industry. His use of ship imagery references his father's service in the merchant navy while they are very contemporary in the themes they explore, reflecting on the wider political turmoil of our times. Ultimately, these are mirrors of Miller's inner world and his unique preoccupations and concerns.
On one level, the paintings emphasize the densely woven continuities that have governed Miller's development, reaffirming his consistent practice of making new art while progressing through a chain of variant self-repetitions whose play of recurrence and reconsideration is analog to the fullness of consciousness itself. Yet, our sampling makes us equally aware of the many sharp fissures and discontinuities in this same artistic evolution. Thinking about how we might articulate a meaning for these paintings inevitably draws us into broader questions of how, on the occasion of an exhibition, we should reckon with issues of coherence and "legibility" in an art so densely armored and internally complex.
Where and how should we begin to say what such an art means?
We could begin at a basic level, with the impact the art has on us before we label our pleasures or organize our questions—the particular blend of stimulations, irritations, and rewards that we sense as a personality or character in the presence of these paintings. Their yes-no rhythms of fast and slow, thick and thin, liquidity and dryness, intimacy and implacable chilliness, the literal and the inexplicable in fusion, leave an impression. The deliberate use of paint reveals weathering and corrosion, emphasizing the nautical origins of disruptive dazzle schemes. Lines, marks, and other compositional elements are occasionally left visible in an apparent gesture of "truthfulness," but in many cases, these nuances are fakes, introduced to undercut any suggestion of pictorial integrity.
Miller’s solicitation of touch in his paintings—his enfleshment of abstraction—has political ramifications that are in dialogue with the latest historical events and are made manifest in the way the works look as well as in how they were made. At various times, he has been the wielder of a cool, smoothly anonymous touch, and at others the author of some of the densest and most caressed surfaces in contemporary painting. His mastery of colors and textures creates a weathered effect that evokes sun-bleaching and corrosion, in keeping with the maritime origins of dazzle camouflage. Miller's use of color, line, and form creates a layered and thought-provoking visual language that speaks to the complexities of the human experience.
The paintings can be interpreted in a variety of ways, from playful to introspective, and Miller's reference to his father's connection to the merchant navy adds depth and meaning to the work. The series invites viewers to consider the ways in which our experiences shape our perception of reality, and how our understanding of truth can be influenced by societal and cultural forces.
Exhibitions, Fairs, Murals & Installations
2023
- Solo Exhibition, Gallery Jeeum, Hong Kong
2022
- Art Central Hong Kong, (Gallery Jeeum, Hong Kong)
- Solo Exhibition, Gallery Jeeum, Seoul
2021
- Solo Exhibition, Gallery Jeeum, Hong Kong
- "Greatest Hits" (Group Show), Manhattan, New York (14 November 2021 - 29 January 2022)
- "Home Bittersweet Home" (Group Show), ALAS Atelier, Brooklyn, New York (31 July - 1 August 2021)
2020
- “Brooklyn Collected: Artists Next Door” (Group Show), curated by nAscent Art, The Watermark, Brooklyn, New York (16 September - 28 December 2020)
- Interior Mural, MainEntrance @ The Main, Manhattan, New York (August - September 2020)
- “100 Days” (Online Group Show), Antraniq Gallery on Artsy Exclusive (22 June - 20 July 2020)
2019
- Featured Artist, Manhattan, New York (2 December 2019 - 19 April 2020)
- “Wordless Eloquence” (Curator, 4-person show), Alumni Room Gallery, St Joseph's College, Brooklyn, New York (30 October - 27 November 2019)
2018
- “Roundels” (Solo Show), ALAS Atelier & Art Space, Frankfurt, Germany (12 - 24 July 2018)
- “Season 10” (Group Show), Manhattan, New York (15 April - 23 June 2018)
- “M10 x MainEntrance” (Group Show), Manhattan, New York (March - June 2018)
2017
- “Real Fake/Fake Fake” (Solo Show), Manhattan, New York (9 July - 16 September 2017)
2016
- “Clydebuilt” (Lobby Installation), Hyatt Place, Wilson Boulevard, Arlington VA (September 2016)
2015
- “Layers” (2-person show), Brooklyn Oenology (BOE), New York (23 July - 8 September 2015)
- Sing For Hope Piano Installation, Inwood Hill Park, New York (5 - 21 June 2015)
- “Making Waves” (100-meter collaborative sidewalk chalk drawing), Lulu & Leo Fund, Riverside Park, New York (9 May 2015)
- “Dazzle” (Solo Show), COEUR, 404 Event Space, New York (21 - 23 February 2015)
Ongoing
- Life Member of the Art Students League of New York (April 2011 - Present)