November 30th 2012 to January 5th 2013 at scream
Opening tonight an exhibition of new mixed media paintings by American artist Greg Miller.
Drawing from the diverse cultural and geographic make-up of his American roots, Greg Miller explores his relationship with the space he inhabits to communicate a particular urban experience. Working with both paint and collage, he constructs and deconstructs, exploring the contradiction, ambiguity and truth between urban streetscape and history. Miller comments, “In the ‘50s I would drive with my dad from Northern California through the San Joaquin Valley because he did a lot of business in Los Angeles,” Miller says. “We would drive along the old Highway 99. And the billboards along the way were all ripped and torn. They were old. There was nothing fresh about them. When I would see these posters I would get a sense of history and time. I could see that we’re kind of visitors because we’re not of that time necessarily but I’m recording it and I’m painting it.”
Miller’s abstracted backgrounds of drips, patterns, and phrases and the peeling back of layers provide a study in the impermanence of the things that surround us. His large-scale paintings and installations aim to make the most fleeting parts of American culture tangible. They grab us nostalgically, rousing us to enjoy the momentary beauty found in the impermanent parts of our lives. There is a fragile heroism conveyed within the temporary nature of it all, especially within his construction of paper, wood and natural materials, that gives Miller’s work liveliness and depth.?? Miller’s use of resin as a flawless glaze preserves this history and transience, but also gives the work a high quality finish.
Greg Miller’s work is featured in numerous museum and private collections that have travelled internationally including those organized by the Charles Saatchi Collection and the Frederick R. Weisman Collection. “The Get Go”, a volume of his writings, photography and paintings, was published in 2010, and the first comprehensive monograph on the artist, Signs of the Nearly Actual, was published in 2008.
Miller spends his time between Austin, TX and Los Angeles, CA.
