Early career Early in his career, Miller worked in more traditional media, primarily oil painting, acrylic painting and printmaking. In the early 1990s, while working as the art director for In Pittsburgh Newsweekly, he co-founded the Industrial Arts Co-op. The activist collective experimented with trash or junk art, a subset of
found object art made from objects and materials that have been thrown away. The group broke into abandoned buildings, mostly steel mills, where they exhibited art made from scavenged materials. Miller collected linoleum that had been thrown into dumpsters and, using pieces of linoleum, created framed portraits, landscapes and other works.
Linoleum art Miller's initial showings at exhibits in Pittsburgh and elsewhere generated Interest in his linoleum works. In 1997, he relocated to New York, where he was art director of the weekly
Long Island Voice and, after it folded, a designer at
The Village Voice. He continued to work in linoleum during this time, and by 2002 was concentrating fulltime on producing art from discarded linoleum. His early themes were often dark, influenced by deaths in his family and the decline of the industrial cities in which Miller lived. As his work evolved, he branched out thematically. He produced landscapes, still-life studies, religious themed art, portraits of rock stars (notably
The Beatles and
Frank Zappa) and depictions of major events such as the sinking of the
Titanic and the attack on the
Twin Towers in New York. His portraits of
Mothers of Invention founder Frank Zappa attracted the attention of Zappa’s wife,
Gail Zappa, resulting in the commissioning of two album covers by Miller,
Congress Shall Make No Law..., and
Finer Moments. He created the poster image for the 2012
Woodstock Film Festival.
Exhibitions Miller has exhibited primarily in the United States. His linoleum art has appeared in exhibits in
London, U.K. and at the annual
Drap Art exhibit in
Barcelona, Spain. A retrospective of his work was held in Pittsburgh in 2007. He is represented by the Lindsay Gallery in
Columbus, Ohio. == References ==