Michael Paul Miller @ artavita

Michael Paul Miller

www.mpmart.net

Michael Paul Miller is an emerging artist in the contemporary art world who originated from central Wisconsin and is now living in the Olympic Northwest of Washington. Since his first solo show in 2003, Miller's work has been exhibited in New York City, Seattle, the Museum of Wisconsin Art, Oregon’s Coos Art Museum, and other notable locations throughout the nation. In 2009, his work was awarded, “Best Artwork” in the annual issue of Crosscurrents.

Miller holds a Master of Arts and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting and Graphic Communications from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Academic Awards/Honors include the Edith L. Gilbertson Scholarship, the Chancellor's Merritt Award for art, and a faculty nomination for the 2006 Dedalus Foundation Grant.

Miller's postmodern figurative paintings created under the label, The Salvaged, explore the sublimity of existence through a post-apocalyptic environment emblematic of death, disaster, and desolation, without abandoning subtle indications of hope and beauty. The imagery and subject matter allows for an open-ended inquiry of the bewildering human condition, and may address an extensive range of contemporary issues.

Currently, Miller works at his private studio located in Port Angeles, WA and teaches at Peninsula College as a tenured Associate Professor of Art. Previously he held art faculty positions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Carroll University, Carthage College, and Herzing College.

Miller is represented by Pacini Lubel Gallery in Seattle, and by Denise Bibro Fine Art in New York City.

Portfolio:

2007

I am fascinated by perseverance and find this primordial instinct and necessity of life to be ennobling and suspect, especially when the path is perilous and end is bleak.

My work explores the sublimity of existence through a post-apocalyptic environment emblematic of death, disaster, and desolation, without abandoning subtle indications of hope and beauty. This deconstructive setting is a harrowing and plausible circumstance that allows for an open-ended inquiry into the bewildering human condition, and enables the subject matter to address an extensive range of contemporary issues. ??

I take refuge in the power and versatility of oil paint on canvas. I have deep respect and appreciation for its immediacy, history, and its transformative capability to depict the authentic. I use traditional glazing, scumbling, and impasto techniques with a dark and rich color palette to create the subdued tones and distressed atmosphere associated with destruction. In selective areas I apply bright cautionary cadmiums that break through the darkness to present an alarming beauty.

The imagery I create and manner in which I work comes from a variety of sources including a grand tradition of studio painters. I feel indebted to the artistic accomplishments of many, though the works of Goya, Turner, Géricault, and Homer often come to mind. As for other sources of creation, I rely upon symbolism, ingenuity, intuition, knowledge, and happenstance. I am intrigued and often mysti?ed by the wonder and awe of personal experience and its relationship to consciousness, delusion, and purpose. I seek out the gray and am delighted when my paintings raise open-ended questions that are subject to different interpretation.

In which direction does the road lie? We seek answers to the many questions of life and are seldom pacified. An apocalypse is inevitable and when this moment arrives will we finally know. As conscious beings we have emerged from infinite mystery, and into mystery we’ll return. In the end we may find that mystery is all there is. Until then, may these paintings be an enduring reminder.

“The Calling”