MILLER-HAVENS ART

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  In 1971 I resumed my art education by painting both abstractly and figuratively . I left pure abstraction in the late 70's.

 

In 2008 I returned to abstraction to take a break from the conscious control required in rendering the faces and poses that I have sought to portray in the 1990s

 

In this series I return to my fascination with the colors white and gray. I treat white, not as the absence of color as the Renaissance painters described it, but as a complex pigment that stands on its own.

Gray is for me the great container of all colors. Depending on the color proportions in the mixture it influences all other color in a painting. A warm gray, for instance, next to a warm red will render the red duller or cooler because its warmth is absorbing the warmth of the red.

 

I set up for solution artistic problems that combine images and painting techniques from the past with the present, that define space through unexpected uses of color and line, that generate for the viewer a sense of ambiguity and timelessness.

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As to technique in this series I experimented with acrylics, sand, stone, glass bits, fiber paste and oils as if I were cooking. Because I prefer the fluidity  and richness of oils I used acrylics as under-painting and then oils on the top. Their luminosity make it look like you are seeing into the acrylic layer beneath.

 

Basically my painting remains an emotional response to color, light, music and human experience.  In this series I let my unconscious and listening to music be the engines of this work. I strove to bring to the viewer what I experience that is both formidable and beautiful in life; to express in paint the emergence of the memorable or emotionally positive feeling that can come out of the most difficult situations.

 

The subtlety of human nature, psychological ambiguity, and a sense of timelessness continue to fuel this new body of work.

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©Miller-Havens 2008