Lavely Miller
“LAVELY MILLER paints figures that exist in moments of emotional action. This sense of movement is translated through transparent layers of glazes, sometimes upward of 100 separate applications of color combining to create the final surface. The quality of layering is heightened by the use of paper, as it moves and crinkles during its application to create physical depth. Classical Flemish glazing techniques - unusually applied almost exclusively with the artist’s right index finger - and the aged appearance of the painted surface give these figures a timeless quality, a frozen moment of physical time filled with universal human emotion.” - Art Martin, Muskegon Museum of Art
Miller’s work contains depths that are “both metaphorical and literal. That the format evokes Renaissance art seems apt...her paintings have an eerie timelessness.” - Mark Jenkins, the Washington Post
She was recently named one of ten finalists for the Bennett Prize, the largest visual arts award given to a female figurative realist in the United States. She is the 2022 recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize 2021 winner (Raymar Panels Traditional Art Award category, 3rd place), awarded Juror’s Choice, from National Museum of American History/Smithsonian Institution’s Camy Clough, and received a top prize at 2013 Art Basel. She has had residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Dacia Gallery in New York City, where she studied under Iliya Mirochnick. Her work is regularly exhibited at the LA Art Show through Arcadia Contemporary.
Miller’s paintings have been featured in American Art Collector, Hyperallergic, Fine Art Connoisseur, Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, the Washington Post, as well as other publications internationally. Her work is held in various public collections such as the New Salem Museum in New Salem, Massachusetts, the University of Virginia, the National Center for Transgender Equality in Washington, DC, and the Twenty-First Century Fox and News Corporation Building in New York City. Her work is internationally privately collected.
Miller graduated summa cum laude with a BFA in Studio Art from James Madison University. She holds both master's and doctoral level degrees in Clinical Mental Health from the University of Virginia, where she completed her residency in the area of serious mental illness.
Lavely Miller currently lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.
Statement:
I paint in acrylics with my fingers. For the past twenty years, this has been the most consistent element in how my work is made. The pieces I’ve submitted in this application are examples of this. They also reflect a recent experimentation with two additional techniques that have significantly contributed to the overall visual appearance of my work.
The first technique is the incorporation of adhering paper onto canvas prior to painting on top of it. The paper contracts and expands in reaction to being sealed and affixed to another substrate, which creates the textural “crinkling” effect observable on many of the surfaces. The second technique is the application of paint via transparent glazing layers - tiny amounts of color mixed with a gel medium and applied one sheer color at a time. These glazing layers are what produce the appearance of smooth blending and the occasional optical glow of the images. This is also likely what causes many people to assume my work is done in oil.
On a contextual level, the paintings presented here are steeped in a thematic “aboutness” that revolves around personal difficulty, religious contemplation, trauma and good fortune. I consider my work to be thank-you letters to God.
