22 MAY – 15 JUNE 2013
Gallery 9 is proud to present the first exhibition at the gallery by Melbourne based artist Viv Miller.
Miller works with painting, drawing and animation and confidently employs both representational and abstract approaches to form her distinct imagery. She draws influences from the natural world and sublime landscapes along with computer graphics and cell animation, with recognisable inflections of Japanese, as well as Western traditions.
Explaining how much of her recent work has focussed on the sun, she considers it as an omnipresent force which nonetheless cannot be looked at directly. The sun’s sublime qualities render it an impossible subject and therefore perfect for Miller’s painterly enquiries. Miller also explains that she has attempted to develop ways to represent more ethereal qualities in her work, like air and spaciousness. She makes no claim to having conquered these subjects, but instead allows them to provide a source upon which to develop modes of her own painterly expression.
'Outcomes' consists of large and small paintings and works on paper and acetate. In these, intricate geometric patterns and shiny plastic textures play against more realistic and painterly passages. The imagery she develops appears both hand-worked and synthetic, attesting to a broader consideration of our contemporary visual environment.
Currently living in Melbourne, Miller completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Hons. 1) at the University of South Australia and a Master of Visual Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts, UMelb where she is currently undertaking a Master of Fine Arts. Miller was a co-founder of artist-run gallery Downtown Art Space in Adelaide and in 2005/06 undertook a two year studio residency at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces. Miller has exhibited with Neon Parc and Ryan Renshaw Gallery as well as a broad range of artist-run and government funded spaces. Her work is held in private collections in Australia and overseas as well as UBS, Brisbane; Artbank, Macquarie Bank; Sydney and New York, BHP Billiton, Melbourne and Proclaim, Melbourne.