Melanie Miller New; Unknown
The works in this exhibition have been made since moving to Cornwall in 2021. Whereas previously I may have focused on a single isolated item, the relentless, immersive and overwhelming experience of nature here has led to a change of scale and complexity within the paintings. The subject and the ground have become more integrated as I attempt to uncover connections, in glimpsed strangeness and fleeting observations amongst seemingly familiar ephemeral objects, exploring the unknown and the unknowable, the mysterious and strange in my immediate environment.
I am continuing to make the small dioramas begun in lockdown. Being unable to get into the studio working from home I started collaging and curating small collections of found objects and ephemera I had collected over the years, with embroidery, cast objects and collage into boxes, creating miniature scenes. Lit through vintage lenses by viewers own mobile phones giving them intimate views.
Melanie Miller 2023Encounter, 2023
wooden box, collage, rose thorns, gold leaf, lens, glazed
23.5 × 16.5 × 10 cm
“Melanie Miller’s tiny worlds seem to whisper enchantments in muffled voices; like childhood notions held in secret places. These are like poetry without lines to tell us the tale. Instead she creates curious little scenes with enough real to draw us in through familiarity and enough surreal to distance us, like a dream or a light shone on a tender seedling in the dead of night. As with any moment of light, these tender little glimpses might disappear just as quickly“
Jilian Knipe 2021
Horned Sprite, 2023 oil on gesso panel 50 × 40 cm
Daises, 2023 oil on gesso panel 70 × 50 cm
Understory, 2023 oil on gesso panel 100 × 70 cm
Hinterland, 2023 oil on gesso panel 100 × 70 cm
Blackbird, 2023 oil on gesso panel 40 × 40 cm
Goldfinch, 2023 oil on gesso panel 50 × 50 cm
Seen, 2023 oil on gesso panel 40 × 40 cm
Sylvan, 2023 oil on gesso panel 40 × 40 cm
Gothic, 2023 oil on gesso panel 60 × 40 cm
Mayflies, 2023 oil on gesso panel 30 × 30 cm
Primrose, 2023 oil on gesso panel 60 × 30 cm
Thrush, 2023 oil on gesso panel 50 × 40 cm
Thicket, 2023 oil on gesso panel 30 × 30 cm
Hawblossom II, 2023 oil on gesso panel 30 × 30 cm
Cowparsley, 2023 oil on gesso panel 50 × 40 cm
Homage to a Slowworm, 2023 oil on gesso panel 50 × 40 cm
Frosted Orange, 2023 oil on gesso panel 50 × 40 cm
Acorns, 2023 oil on gesso panel 20 × 20 cm
Daises, 2023 oil on gesso panel 40 × 40 cm
Hidden, 2023
wooden box, collage, found objects, velvet, cast jesmonite, jay feather, lens, glazed 23.5 × 16.5 × 10 cm
Fragile, 2023
wooden box cast glass, antique photographic slide, collage, velvet, lens, glazed 20 × 14 x 11 cm
Ghost Forest, 2023
wooden box, found object, gesso, cast jesmonite, collage, lens, glazed 20 × 14 x 11 cm
Education
Maidstone College of Art B.A hons Fine Art
Wimbledon School of Art M.A in Painting
Solo Exhibitions
2023 New; Unknown, Long and Ryle, London
2020-21 Finite Things, Long and Ryle
2020, April, Solace 2020, (selection of work
madeduring lockdown), Long and Ryle
2018-2019 The Form of Things Unknown, Le Salon Vert Geneva Switzerland
2014 Natural History, Long and Ryle
2011 Close: Still, Millennium, St Ives
2010 Moth Boy and Bees, Long and Ryle
2009 Small Truths, Millennium, St Ives
2008 Particular, Hilton Young, Penzance
Selected recent exhibitions include
2023 Contemporary British Painting Prize, (Shortlisted) Huddersfield Museum
2002-13 and 2015-22 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts
2021 Landscape Unstilled Life, Darlby and the Bear Woodstock, Oxfordshire
2021 Model Maquette, The Cello Factory Southwark, London
2020 The Seventh View, C24 Gallery, New York
2020 Wells Art Contemporary, Wells Cathedral, Somerset
2018 Seen Unseen, (curated) Five Painters and a Poet, Long and Ryle
2002-2016, 2017, 2019 The Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London
2009-13, 2015-17 Columbia Threadneedle Prize, (Shortlisted 2009)
Exhibitions curated
2018 Seen Unseen, Five Painters and a Poet, Alice Oswald, Juliette Losq, Sue Williams, Long and Ryle
2018, June – September, A’court, Anna Gardiner, Louise McClary, Melanie Miller, Long and Ryle
Forthcoming Exhibitions
2023 New; Unknown, Long and Ryle
2024, May, Solo Show, Salon Vert Geneva
Switzerland
Art Fairs
British Art Fair
London Original Print Fair
Open Art Fair
Art Miami
London Art Fair
International Print Fair
20/21 art Fair
BADA
Residencies
2019 KIRA: Kingsbrae International residency for the Arts Canada