Dan Miller Art for Sale the Back Road Artist

The Art of Dan Miller

Wait for art in unusual places considering creativity is everywhere," says Tom di Maria, Director of External Relations at Artistic Growth, a nonprofit fine art studio founded in 1974 for artists with disabilities in downtown Oakland. "There's a sense of excitement in terms of meeting an artist and engaging with their piece of work."

By: Kevin Daniel Dwyer

Installation of piece of work by Dan Miller at Andrew Edlin's booth at Frieze New York 2019

Dan Miller at piece of work in the Artistic Growth Studio | Photography: Diana Rothery, courtesy Artistic Growth Fine art Heart

Creative Growth and its extensive team lead by di Maria are leaders in the field of arts and disabilities, establishing a model for a creative atmosphere guided by the principle that all people gain fulfillment from the arts and are capable of producing piece of work of slap-up cultural merit.

The studio is domicile to over 150 artists working in a variety of media. Facilitated by professional artists, Creative Growth provides non-directive artistic support, museum-quality materials, and infinite to explore painting, drawing, ceramics, woodworking, fiber arts, printmaking, and digital media.

"Coming to Artistic Growth opened upwards an enormous new world to me in terms of what fine art was and who an artist can be. Walking into the studio, I felt like information technology was this fantastic aesthetic laboratory where you come across people problem solve, communicate and experiment visually in a way that is and so integral to who they are as human beings," recalls di Maria. He found the piece of work to exist without ego and self-conscience efforts. "The depictions were immediately visceral, meaningful and aesthetically engaging which I found incredibly powerful. This is the essence of what every creative person is trying to do. To connect with that part of them that wants to create. Creativity is this innate human being experience and to see it in its purest class is a pretty powerful experience."

Dan Miller, Untitled, (DM 1102), 2019, Work on paper, 55.75"x98", courtesy Creative Growth Art Center

Dan Miller is 1 of Creative Growth's star artists, a 20-twelvemonth veteran of the studio fine art plan whose exhibitions include solo shows in New York at Ricco|Maresca Gallery and White Columns and in Los Angeles at Diane Rosenstein Gallery, as well equally group exhibitions at the Berkeley Fine art Museum; The Museum of Everything, London; Partners and Spade, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York; Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco; and ABCD, Paris, to name a few. Miller's  piece of work is too part of the permanent drove of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Berkeley Art Museum, the Mad Musée, and the Drove de l'Fine art Brut, Lausanne. He's besides the offset artist with autism in the MOMA's collection.

Miller has limited verbal capabilities. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, he uses linguistic communication as the basis for his drawings, which consist of dense, mostly illegible accretions of words, phrases, messages and numbers that serve as a record of the artist'southward life and obsessions. Letters and words are repeatedly overdrawn, ofttimes creating ink layered masses, hovering on the page and built up to the betoken of obliteration or devastation of the ground. Each work contains the written recording of the Miller's obsession with objects similar low-cal bulbs, electrical sockets, nutrient and the names of cities and people. Miller continues to piece of work in a diversity of media, including drawing, painting, ceramics, wood sculpture, printmaking, and other mixed media projects.

"The power of Dan's work is something that most artists strive for, in that the grade and the content are intrinsically linked. The content are his words and the class are his words. The two things together are and so powerful," reflects di Maria. "It'south non like an artist with a great formal technique thinking 'what should it be almost?' For Dan, it's about simply i thing, and that's how information technology looks besides. He'southward actually solved his communication challenge in a beautiful mode."

The key to facilitating Dan'south work is encouragement. Staffed by professional artists who support every bit mentors, Miller's piece of work has continued to evolve over time. "Encouragement and supporting creativity is cardinal, a lot of times past deflecting. For someone similar Dan, his work is all discussion and text based. Early his words were clearly delineated. Information technology looked in a fashion elementary. A young man artist/mentor understands how to encourage him to go on that railroad train of thought: What happens if he continues? What happens after 5 – 10 years? When he is introduced to paint? What happens if the paper gets bigger, or the materials change?' Nosotros just keep encouraging and encouraging and encouraging," says di Maria.

Dan Miller, Untitled, (DM 1193), 2019, Piece of work on paper, 55.five"x84", courtesy Artistic Growth Art Center

Encouraged he is. Miller has dedicated staff, including an banana several days a week whose job is to lay out every possible material, mediums and paper that he might want to utilize.  The goal is not to tell him what to practice just to make sure he has admission to everything and feels supported.

"To be the offset artist with autism in the MOMA drove is an amazing achievement. When yous run into someone similar Dan communicate in a mode that's beyond anything that I can exercise, you see the richness of their experience and that opens the door into what he's seeing and what he's feeling about the globe," says di Maria. "To go an artist who is a part of art history without having an understanding of fine art history is a pretty amazing achievement."

Miller has something to say to the world. On the surface, the word-tangled artworks reflect an experience or retention he has. Excavation deeper, di Maria thinks Miller is trying to tell us: "I have perceptions and understandings of the world but I might not be able to communicate information technology in the way y'all expect. Don't disbelieve me."

"Autism is primarily a communication syndrome. Art is a really satisfying way for Dan to detour around that obstacle. When you see the urgency with which Dan works, I recall you lot see that because information technology's so of import to him. If I told yous don't speak again for the rest of your life, that's an near impossible request. I retrieve that for Dan to take found a solution to that situation is part of the importance of his work," says di Maria.

Advocacy is the underlying mission of what Creative Growth does. Di Maria: "The intelligence is at that place, all the information is there, only in the incorrect place. How tin can nosotros open the door or the portal to have a more complete understanding of what it's like to live within an autistic encephalon and to bargain with those frustrations? Miller is an astonishing problem solver. He'due south too aesthetically talented and a very sophisticated artist from colour combinations to palette."

Dan Miller, Untitled, (DM 1107), 2019, Work on paper, 55.5"x86", courtesy Creative Growth Art Center

Other artists, including David Byrne, Cindy Sherman and the tardily Kate Spade were some of the primeval collectors who responded to Miller's work and other Creative Growth artists. What they run into is the firsthand connectedness betwixt maker, and process and object. Miller doesn't get stuck on commerciality and price point. "Our role is to correspond the artist to the art world, in terms of their income and sales price. It separates the commercial market place from the process of making the work that is refreshing in a way," says di Maria.

Miller's works range from small typed pieces priced at $1,000 to larger paintings ranging from $10,000 to $15,000. A big work of Miller sold for $45,000 recently at Art Basel Miami. Miller'due south pricing follows the aforementioned way any contemporary creative person would evolve: "As the work gets stronger, voice is clearer and as it moves into important collections and museums, the price reflects that. Information technology'southward not an invented toll," says di Maria.

Di Maria recalls a funny come across from a successful evidence. "A year ago he had a big prove in New York. I came back and told Dan 'your bear witness went really well, people like your work, and so on." He says: 'coconut ice cream.' I told him: 'Nosotros don't take any coconut ice cream' and then he says 'go go some!' I've never heard him say that in his life. He understood that something practiced had happened and that his advantage was going to exist coconut ice foam - so go get some!"

Beyond a honey of coconut ice cream, I ask di Maria what else nosotros might not know about Miller: "Dan'south an astonishing basketball player. He shoots free throws underhand and he doesn't miss. He loves to eat and that'due south rewarding for him. He's also a bit of a ladies man."

If you come to Creative Growth at that place is no right or incorrect. "Information technology's a groovy way to wait at Miller'south work and the piece of work of other artists and decide what yous like and don't like without the judgments of a gallery," says di Maria. "Near importantly, don't' be agape to exist a tastemaker." G

To acquire more than well-nigh the works of Dan Miller and Creative Growth visit CreativeGrowth.org

Tel: 510.836.2340 | 355 24th Street | Oakland, CA 94612

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Source: https://www.gateway-magazine.com/articles/the-art-of-dan-miller

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