The City: Amelia Midori Miller
“There are pictures that manifest education and there are pictures that manifest love.”
Foreword
Tokyo-born NYC-based oil painter. BFA and MFA in Fine Arts (School of Visual Arts). Educator. Out-front storyteller. Daring mother.
Preface
I was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, where my family still lives. My mother is Japanese and my father is an American from Arizona who moved to Japan forty years ago. I moved to New York City in 2003 to attend the School of Visual Arts for my BFA. The body of work I developed in college was largely figurative and explored family issues and me being biracial and a product of two very different cultures. During this period, I often looked at the narrative works of Eric Fischl, Edward Hopper, Liu Xiaodong, and Gregory Crewdson.
After graduation, the bodies of work I made were research-based and explored a variety of imagined and recorded stories, such as Amelia Earhart’s disappearance, the polygamists of the FLDS Church in the southwest, or Woody Allen and the allegations against him. I was always interested in narrative painting, but eventually shied away from it because I didn’t want to tell stories too specific that did not evolve much beyond them. I got into the MFA Fine Arts program at SVA, where my work gradually became more abstracted. This began when I attended some Occupy Wall Street protests and took lots of photos documenting the DIY signs and wooden structures, which I incorporated into my paintings. This is when the idea of architectural “obstructions” and general layering in my paintings started appearing. My big inspiration was urban cityscapes. Since I had only lived in Tokyo and New York City, I was so used to having only obstructed views, such as a window, a scaffolding, a telephone pole, and so on.
In 2017, Koki Arts presented a two-person exhibition featuring my husband, Augustus Nazzaro, and myself. We both created a body of work in the same timeframe and worked from the same image references. During that time I was struggling to get pregnant, went through fertility treatments, and finally did get pregnant via IVF, so it was very personal to both of us.
This newest series of work comes after a break from painting after the birth of my daughter in 2018. It took me a while to get back to painting due to time constraints and lack of inspiration: the fatigue is very real, as any new parent knows. This physical, emotional and mental journey took over, and now as a mother, it’s hard to ignore this huge new part of my life. We all are born pure, undeterred, and without fear, learning to be cautious and restrained as we grow older – it’s refreshing to see my daughter’s fearlessness and playful spirit. Today, I try to blend that fearlessness into my art making process as much as I can by rummaging through her scribbles on paper, random placement of stickers, and digital scrawling on the iPad.
Biribiri (2020) | Oil on canvas
Infant Optix (2020) | Oil on canvas
C.B. Was Here (2020) | Oil on canvas
One Eye, Two Eyes (2020) | Oil on canvas
B For Boo! (2020) | Oil on linen
I Voted (2020) | Oil on canvas
Six Hands (2020) | Oil on canvas
Epilogue
For the last five years, I’ve been teaching foundation painting at the School of Visual Arts where many of my students are learning the essentials, from color value charts to limited color palette still lifes, so I’m constantly reintroduced to the basics of painting and can really evaluate what exactly I enjoy about it, which is rendering and building up a recognizable image.
As an artist, I try to focus on the variations in textures, edges, and painting styles I can offer for each new painting, including geometric vs organic or digital vs analog elements, while keeping the possibility of the painting open. My goal is to employ different painting styles to create contrast and layering within a single work. When adding layering in painting, you always have the potential to ruin the underlayer, but you can’t achieve bold moves if you’re too scared of making mistakes.
This series feels like a culmination of my formal training painting representationally and figuratively, as well as my “unlearning” of that in graduate school when dabbling with abstraction. The incorporation of figures and hands, starting with the idea of handling the paintings as if they are objects, with trompe l'oeil elements supporting this, brings a level of intimacy to an image, as well as the concept of time – capturing a still, quiet moment or a playful one.
This is the first time I am presenting this series publicly, and I hope that the paintings evolve with the viewers, offering new insight upon every glance.
Bibliography
Design A, a Japanese design show
The City
Favorite thing about living in New York ↝ Multiculturalism, especially in Queens
One thing you can't survive without in the city ↝ Restaurants (check out Katsuno in Forest Hills for authentic Japanese cuisine and The Blue Stove in Bushwick for old-fashioned pies)
Three adjectives describing New York ↝ Diverse, resilient, stimulating
The most inspiring spot in the city ↝ Our yard that we have been making into our oasis while quarantining at home
Current obsession ↝ 2020 election // US and Japanese history // Watchmen, Lovecraft Country // Gardening // Baking
Links: Website
