BIOGRAPHY
Michael Robert Miller was born in Camden, New Jersey. He grew up in New Jersey and Southern California.
Michael currently resides and paints in the vibrant Artists district of Brooklyn, Bushwick. Three months a year he lives and paints in Rome, Italy.
Michael has studied Art at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, CA, and graduated at California State University, receiving a BA in Art and Film.
In the mid 70’s he began his career as a painter. Since 2012 Michael Robert Miller is fulltime working as a painter.
Painting was allegedly dead at this time. Painting were reduced to monochrome, other forms were conceptual, environmental or performance art. Michael continued to work in figurative/narrative style.
But in the beginning 80’s he was in a divorce and had to raise two very young daughters. So he had to work fulltime in the corporate world.
Michael as a child was drawing since fourth grade school, he drew from his mother’s medical books and magazines. At a very young age he already wanted to become an artist.
Throughout the years until he graduated from the University Michael gain in depth studies in reading numerous art books on impressionism, post impressionism, German expressionism, and reading hundred of various artists and continue working on drawings and paintings.
Every work of Miller’s Art is a contemporary experience that brings you into own present. Michael declared that he wants his life, his experience and his soul to be interwoven in the threads of the canvas and paint. Or it’s just paint on cloth or wallpaper, no thinking or interaction. He starts with images and ideas inspired by his experience, which can then be melded with various reference topics such as pop, human emotions and the darkness that is inevitably pulled from ordinary life.
„I have always been absorbed with narrative figuration composition and reaching a balance between representation and abstraction, either through the applied paint, disrupting the surface, texture, the accident, nature, various materials that are applied as well his subjectivity.“
It is Michael Robert Miller‘s intention to express both the frustration and unpredictability of daily life. It’s a transformation of daily life from darkness into the lightness.
CV
Education
1977 California State University (Northridge, CA) Bachelor of Arts in Art and Film
1973 Moorpark Jr College (Moorpark, CA)
1971 Art Center College of Design (Los Angeles, CA)
Exhibitions
2024 Convergenze d’Arte at Galleria Purificato Zero, Sala Ruspoli, Cerveteri, Rome, Italy
2024 Galleria Purificato Zero, Salone Comunale Municipio, Forti/ Italy„Mille KM della Cultura“
2023 Convergenze, Galleria Purificato.Zero & Salon d’Arts Plastique de la Rochelle
at Palazzo Rospigliosi, Rome, Italy
2023 Galleria d’Arte, Purificato Zero, Sala Ruspoli, Cerveteri, Rome, Italy
2022 Parafrasi, Purificato Zero, Palazzo Rospigliosi, Rome, Italy
2022 Days of Light, Van der Plas Gallery, Manhattan, NY
2014 Never mind the Bollocks, Life on Mars Gallery, Brooklyn NY
1985 Invitationally Summer, Concours de Art Gallery, Ventura, CA
1984 Michael Robert Miller paintings, Heller Gallery, UC Berkeley, CA
1984 Visions of Fusion, Mark Reuben Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Awards
2023 Recipient Award of Distinction Convergence Galleria Purificato.Zero & Salon D’Arts Plastiques De La Rochelle, Rome, Italy
1985 Ventura artist in residence, Ventura, CA
1970-1971 art scholarship at the Art Center of Design, Los Angeles, CA
Publications
2023 July, IL Corriere Di Roma, Arte
2023 AgendArte, Purificato Zero Galleria, Rome, Italy:
7/2022 ArtLand – Michael Robert Miller
6/2015 Mysticism sparkles at Bushwick Open studios by Daniel Larkin Hyperallergic.com
STATEMENT
Creating Art with paint is both a mental and physical process. I begin with images and ideas inspired by my experience, which can then be melded with various reference topics such as pop, human emotion, and the darkness that inevitably pulled from ordinary life.
I have always been absorbed with narrative figuration composition and reaching a balance between representation and abstraction.
My natural inclination is first to decipher what fragment image of the figurative and representation I want to use to build a narrative composition. Then to create the sensation, immediacy and emotion of the scene by employing thick textures of oils and other textures in crudely applied paint strokes. Then I build a tension between narrative figurative by applying thick lines and resin to deconstruct the composition and narrative by creating movement and chaos to the surface of the painting. Doing this, as if it was an old photograph that has white crevices or cracks and been stain by liquids accidentally dropped or spilled on it.
It’s my intention to express both the frustrations and unpredictability of daily life. It’s a transformation of daily life – from darkness into the lightness.
