Wade Miller

Artist Statement

I am a painter of artificial naturalism. I begin by making collages of photographs. I collect photographs of people, scenes, textures, typeface and abstract images cut from magazines.  I work to create a shifting balance of the pictorial forces that produce the illusion and the counter-forces that shatter the illusion.

I have returned to some of the early modernist strategies of cubism and surrealism but not with the original purpose of creative destruction, rather with the idea of re-building and putting things back together.

The paintings are based on the collages. Painting the collage selectively intensifies the formal and emotional aspects of the collage that interest me.

The subject matter of my work is indirect autobiography.  I never set out to record an incident or mood and I do my best to suppress obvious references, yet so much appears unbidden and nearly unrecognizable.

I believe art should offer the luxury of delay – the slowing down of time, by trick or concentration.  An illusion of a still moment is set up against the ceaseless slipping of the barely experienced present into the forgotten past.

Wade Miller
April 2012

 

Small Works

EDUCATION

1983    Columbia University, MFA

1979    Carnegie-Mellon University, BFA

 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2011    Ruthie’s Café, Highland Park, NJ

2008    Highland Park Public Library, Highland Park, NJ

2006    Perth Amboy Center for the Arts Gallery, Perth Amboy, NJ

1997    Saint Peter’s Church, Citicorp Center, New York

1989    Susan Schreiber Gallery, New York

1986    Limbo Gallery, New York

1985    Limbo Gallery, New York

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2010

Arts Guild of New Jersey, “Text / Image”, Rahway, NJ
Arts Guild of New Jersey, ”Nexus New Jersey”, Rahway, NJ

2009

Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, “Annual International Juried Show”, Summit, NJ
Arts Guild of New Jersey, “Identity and Disguise”, Rahway, NJ

1999    PS 122 Gallery, New York, “The Anniversary Show”

1998    GMHC Chelsea Center, New York

1996

Curt Marcus Gallery, New York, “The Baseball Show”
PS 122 Gallery, New York, “Justice”
Night Gallery, New York

1992

AC Project Room, New York
Dakota Studio, New York
Louis Newman Gallery, Los Angeles

1991

AC Project Room, New York
Klarfield Perry Gallery, New York, “Urban Icons”
Windows on White, New York, “Stella Maris”

1990

West Publishing Company, Chicago, IL, “Art and the Law”
Brecht Forum, New York, “Metamorphosis and Identity”
A/C Gallery, New York
Susan Schreiber Gallery, New York

1989

Seibu, Tokyo, Japan, “Works on Paper”
Brecht Forum, New York, “Transparency and Opacity”
Brand X Gallery, New York

1988

Duke University Museum of Art, Durham, NC, “Fable and Fantasy”
Gruenebaum Gallery, New York, “Invitational”

1987    Harm Bouckaert Gallery, New York

1986

Palladium, New York
Susan Gross Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

1985

Kamikazee, New York
Tower Gallery, South Hampton, NY
Limbo Gallery, New York