ELEANOR GRACE MILLER

Opening Reception:

Sun., March 7th, 2-5pm

Catering by Mimi’s Plate

 Wines by Piermont Fines Wines  

 

The OUTSIDE IN will exhibit works from the series of Black and Still Life oil-on-board paintings by Eleanor Grace Miller this spring.  There will be an opening reception on March 7, 2010 from 2-5PM.  Both Miller’s Black and Still Life works have strong color, design, and assembly elements that were influenced by early Aboriginal, African, and Mid-Eastern cultures, incorporating graphic elements reminiscent of Albertus Seba’s Cabinet of Natural Curiosities, and Kurosawa. 

The works are dominated by brilliant reds and gold within the architecture of a flattened black.  So dark and rich are Miller’s colors, that there is an almost surreal sense of depth that infuses each carefully arranged scene.  Although realistic and fully representational, it is not about rendering reality here but rather deliberate construction.  The still life subjects are extravagant fabrics that weave complex landscapes of saturated undulating colors.  Their abundant folds are mitigated by the sharp lines and abrupt edges of ornate pottery, fruit, or fields of black.  The painter often appears to be suspended above the scene.  Actually, in Eleanor Grace Miller’s still life paintings both our position and subjects are fabrications that do not exist in ordinary life – they were created by the painter.  Her still life is not a collection of cultural fossils interpreted by the artist, but instead an original, crisp and insightful vision generated by the artist herself.     Miller engages the still life with a “constant internal discourse on balance, complexity, rhythm, mood, nuance, pattern, flow, inflection, and color…the sound.”  The Black and Still Life works are composed of stunning images abounding in a strangely beautiful world; compressed, symbolic, the vestigial remains of a civilization. The end result is brilliant – a golden view of her apparently simple world. 

Eleanor Grace Miller resides in the lower Hudson Valley region and has been a painter for over 40 years.  Initially a figurative painter, she advanced toward still life, both traditional and non-traditional, after she realized she predominately attended to color, shape, and reflection when approaching the subject.  Ms. Miller is the recipient of numerous awards, among them, “Best in Show” from the Museum of Fine Arts in Springfield, MA, and the “Anna Hyatt Huntington Medal” from the National Arts Club in New York.  She has exhibited nationally and extensively throughout the Metropolitan area.  Her paintings are in public, foundation and private collections.  She teaches painting at the Pelham Art Center, Rockland Center for the Arts and Saint Thomas Aquinas College.