ALLISON MILLER
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Lots of language sounds direct, but is not; behaviors look understandable, but are misleading (birdwatching: if you
look hard, even the parking lot is wild & rare). The aesthetics of believability, reliability -- & how those veneers drop.
It’s the other way around: the confusing, the elusive, the contradictory can be the most real. ---------------------------
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I painted letters on paper, cut them out & placed them in & around plants, trying to disrupt both at the same time.
After the fake-magic of hovering these thin sculptures outside in the sun, I brought them inside & grounded them.
There is thick oil stick, watercolor, pencil, sometimes some glitter. There are the cuts (marks) in the paper & there are
the cuts around the letters. How does the behavior change? Maybe that was the point, maybe that’s not the point now.
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For The Pit’s next online viewing presentation we’re happy to take you on a tour of the interior and exterior of Allison Miller’s studio, where she has been working on a series of new works on paper. An ever-evolving aspect of Miller’s practice are her paper pieces. Made in groups and often independently of her paintings, they are always in conversation with her other works. Throughout Miller’s career her paintings have continued to mine symbols, at times investigating a gesture's ability to take on symbolic resonance, and this latest group continues these investigations. In these works, Miller has chosen letters as the base from which to create new compositions.
Miller’s surroundings became particularly important in the creation of these latest works as she incorporated the almost performative gesture of placing paper forms throughout her outdoor space and photographing them before taking them inside and attaching them to the paper ground. Miller’s practice suddenly left the confines of the studio and entered a natural setting, a place most associated with plein air landscape painting rather than abstraction in a historical sense, which makes complete sense given the timing in which the works were made. For many artists the Coronavirus and the resulting quarantine has been a catalyst for artistic invention, and Allison Miller’s new works on paper are no exception.
For more insight into Miller’s studio practice, watch her interview below with Mary-Kay Lombino, Deputy Director and the Emily Hargroves Fisher '57 and Richard B. Fisher Curator at the Loeb Art Center at Vassar College. They discuss her painting "Snare" (a work from the Loeb's permanent collection), some of the artists and works from which she draws inspiration, her artistic process and the potential for a painting to embody multiple contradictory perspectives simultaneously.
WORKS
S, 2020
Oil stick, collage, acrylic and glitter on paper
23.5 x 18.5 inches
o3, 2020
Oil stick, collage, and pencil on watercolor paper
23.5 x 18 inches
RT, 2020
Oil stick, collage and acrylic on rag paper
24 x 18 inches
M ha, 2020
Oil stick, collage, acrylic, watercolor and pen on rag paper
24 x 26.5 inches
er, 2020
Oil stick, collage, acrylic, watercolor and glitter on watercolor paper
23.5 x 18 inches
A, 2020
Collage, acrylic and watercolor on rag paper
22.5 x 30 inches
Q, 2020
Oil stick, collage, acrylic and watercolor on rag paper
29.75 x 22.5 inches
D, 2020
Oil stick, collage, acrylic and watercolor on rag paper
24 x 26.5 inches
P, 2020
Oil stick, collage, acrylic and colored pencil on watercolor paper
23.5 x 19.5 inches
M, 2020
Oil stick, oil pastel, collage and acrylic on watercolor paper
23.5 x 17.5 inches
ggE, 2020'
Oil stick, acrylic, colored pencil, glitter and pen on watercolor paper
23.5 x 27.5 inches
C, 2020
Oil stick and acrylic on watercolor paper
23.5 x 18.5 inches
Allison Miller: An Interview by Mary-Kay Lombino, Frances Lehman Loeb Art CenteR
