Greg Miller’s innovative paintings render familiar imagery and text into artworks saturated with poignant slices of Americana. Nostalgic nods to ubiquitous tropes, such as billboards, pulp fictions, comic books, magazine adds and cinema marquees figure in fractions across the canvas. With carefully selected images he composes vignettes to articulate a vernacular about American life and the pervasive symbology of American consumer culture. Disparate objects and figures combine their relationship to one another, coalesce and become a singular subject. The exhibition’s title suggests a fairytale and both the glamour and illusion which Hollywood exports.
Extracting familiar pictorial codes from the popular culture of his youth, Miller constructs a visual vocabulary of accumulated experiences. In his examination of sign systems, modes of transmission, and production methods Miller creates paradoxes around the conventional iconography of post-war America. The artist’s uniquely ‘California’ perspective interweaves high and low culture, labor, and leisure to assemble a complex of images and text.
Greg Miller’s artistic versatility is evident in his adept use of various painting styles. With a deft hand and craftsmanship, he navigates different techniques to achieve diverse visual effects in his work. Using a Renaissance practice of layering paint, he is able to achieve the photorealism in his portraits which is a highly labor intensive and skillful process.
One can observe Miller’s skillful mastery of realism in his highly detailed and precise portrayals. Whether it’s capturing the nuanced expressions of faces or rendering intricate textures, his attention to detail demonstrates his command over the Realist style.
In addition to Realism, Miller seamlessly incorporates elements of abstraction into his paintings. Through gestural brushstrokes, dynamic compositions, and explorations of color and form, he infuses his work with a sense of energy and movement. This interplay between realism and abstraction adds depth and complexity to his visual narratives.
Moreover, Miller’s exploration of mixed media techniques showcases his versatility as an artist. By incorporating materials such as photographs, text, and archival prints into his paintings, he adds layers of texture and meaning. These unconventional materials further enhance the depth and richness of his compositions, inviting viewers to engage with his artwork on multiple levels.
By seamlessly transitioning between different painting styles, Miller demonstrates his artistic prowess and adaptability. This versatility allows him to effectively communicate his ideas and narratives, creating visually compelling and thought-provoking artworks.
Growing up in northern California, Miller’s grandmother would take him on road trips to ghost-towns around Lake Tahoe. While exploring the decaying homes people had abandoned, he was struck by the resourcefulness used to gild the walls with collages of old magazines and newspaper clippings. These archaeological ruins were a foil in contradiction with the tinsel of the aspirational advertisements dressing their walls. Subsequently, Miller became a collector of vintage magazines, newspapers, zines and popular culture which he uses today as a part of his medium.
Miller’s artistic process can be likened to that of a contemporary archaeologist. By layering books, magazines, and other materials onto the surface of his artworks, he engages in a form of excavation and exploration. Much like an archaeologist delving into the layers of the earth to uncover fragments of the past, Miller digs into the layers of images and text to discover hidden clues and meanings.
His approach involves carefully selecting and arranging these fragments, creating a visual narrative that invites viewers to decipher and interpret the connections between the various elements. Through this process, Miller uncovers the cultural and historical references embedded within the materials, offering insights into our collective memory and shared cultural experiences.
By excavating and recontextualizing these visual artifacts, Miller not only pays homage to the past but also sheds light on their enduring influence on contemporary perception. His work invites us to reflect on the ways in which popular culture and media shape our understanding of the world, and how the past continues to resonate in our present.
In this sense, Miller’s artistic practice goes beyond surface-level aesthetics. It becomes a form of storytelling, where the layers of books and magazines act as visual chapters, revealing fragments of our cultural heritage and inviting us to contemplate their significance in our contemporary lives.
Overall, Greg Miller’s deft hand and craftsmanship across various painting styles contribute to the uniqueness and richness of his artistic practice, captivating viewers with his technical skill and ability to evoke a range of emotions through his artwork.
Greg Miller (b. 1951) was born in Sacramento, California and holds a Master of Arts Degree from San Jose University. Once a long-time Venice, California resident, he currently resides in LA, CA & Austin, Texas.
His work is featured in numerous museum and private collections, including those of: the San Jose Museum of Art, Newport Harbor Museum, Crocker Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Laguna Art Museum, Riverside Art Museum, Frederick R. Weisman Foundation and Charles Saatchi Foundation. The Get Go, a volume of his writings, photography and paintings was published in 2010, and the first comprehensive monograph of the artist, Signs of the Nearly Actual, was published in 2009.
