Have you met… David T Miller?

Introductions can be wonderful things. You can meet interesting people, and make new friends through an introduction. Sometimes you can be introduced to your new favorite food, television show, or artist. I’d like to introduce you to some of my favorite artists.

The artist I’d like to introduce is the painter David T Miller of Ambler, Pennsylvania, USA.

Artist Reflection

“My current work is not about anything. It is simply a call and response practice of placing marks and color on a surface. I essentially collaborate with myself. I begin a number of pieces and set them aside to dry. l pick one up and add some sort of embellishment and put it back down. I pick up another and do the same thing until I get to a point where I don’t feel compelled to add further embellishment. Eventually the whole group reaches a state of “completion” in my mind. I tend to view the groups as representing a month’s work of activity.

I enjoy looking at the groupings after they have been made trying to learn more about myself, my process and my practice. I’m often surprised by the habits and characteristics I see. I never intended to make so many dots and don’t think of myself as painting dots when I’m doing them. Dots, stripes, triangles, circles, saw teeth and edges are not things I intended to use and they are not things I think about as I paint, but they have become integral to my current vocabulary. I recently noticed the Oaxacan wood carvings I have in my house that I take for granted and realized the apparent influence I had overlooked.

The grid display is another accidental, but characteristic I’ve observed. That is how I arrange things that I am working on and that is how things are displayed on the gallery page of my website. Last summer I participated in the All Together Now collaboration exhibit in Bushwick organized and curated by Julie Torres. I spread my work out on the floor of the gallery in the same grid relationship I had originally organized at home. Julie didn’t edit or change a thing. She wanted the same grid on the wall. At the time I wasn’t cognizant of what was going on in my own practice. Julie inadvertently helped me learn something about myself.

The same can be said about the collaboration idea. When I participated in the group collaboration process in Bushwick I realized my personal process was identical to that outlined by Julie for the group.”