Mystery, Silence and Intrigue: Featured Artist Joseph A. Miller
Our Featured Artist to start 2023 is Joseph A. Miller. His work is intriguing and invites the viewer to explore the narratives behind his work.
Joseph A. Miller is an Associate Professor of Art at S.U.N.Y. Buffalo State University, where he has taught drawing and painting since 1997. He earned a B.F.A. degree from Kutztown University, Pennsylvania in 1990 and an M.F.A. degree in painting and drawing from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 1993. Before being offered the teaching position at Buffalo State College Joseph worked at The Philadelphia Museum of Art in both the security and art conservation departments.
Miller’s work is in numerous public and private collections, and has been shown internationally in Finland, China, Poland and the Czech Republic, as well as across the United States, from Berkeley, California to Cambridge, Massachusetts. His work has been exhibited at the Arnot Art Museum, the Castellani Art Museum and the Burchfield-Penney Art Center in New York, the Allentown Art Museum, the Woodmere Art Museum, the Erie Art Museum in Pennsylvania, and the Springville Museum of Art in Utah. He has earned numerous awards, including a First Place Award in A.D. Gallery’s Art in Times of Anxiety National Exhibition, at Pembroke, NC, a Purchase Award and a People’s Choice Award at the Royal Nebeker Gallery, in Clatsop Community College’s, Au Naturel: The Nude in The 21st Century International Exhibition, in Astoria Oregon, a First Place Award in Manifest Creative Research Gallery’s International Drawing Annual V, in Cincinnati Ohio, a Best in Show Award in the National Drawing and Painting Exhibition at the Lore Degenstein Gallery at Susquehanna University, Pennsylvania, and two Purchase Awards from Wright State University Art Galleries in Dayton, Ohio. Joseph has given lectures about his work at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Daemen College, New York, Southern Utah University, The University of Utah, Utah State University and at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center in Buffalo, New York. His work is represented by the Art Dialogue Gallery in Buffalo, NY, Meibohm Fine Art in East Arora, NY and the West End Gallery in Corning, NY.
Artist Statement
I focus primarily on the human figure depicted in environments that create a context for psychologically charged open ended narratives. Many of these narratives explore ideas about power and vulnerability.
Quality of light is a common theme. In particular, the way in which atmospheric light and locale can suggest a sense of mystery and silence. These works are dark, humid and hopefully, at their best, memorable. For me, the most successful are those that evoke the feeling that an event is about to happen or has recently happened.
Images of figures or figures in landscapes, in groups or in isolation, share a common feeling of significance. Wholly absorbed within themselves or the dialogue shared between one another, they wait for the unfolding of their private story.
