Josh Miller is an acrylic painter with various influences in realism and socially conscious art to post-impressionism, cubism, abstract expressionism, and modern art. His acrylic painting practice includes portraiture, landscape, and abstract works. 

About Miller

Earlier life

Miller grew up with art and creativity around him. He enjoyed the various mediums and styles he worked with. In high school, Miller took every art class available. From film photography and working in the darkroom to pottery class working to make glazes and making pottery clay, Miller enjoyed the process. Miller also enjoyed Stain glass, printmaking, and drawing classes.

Miller is a 2011 Goshen College Alumnus. He studied Interdisciplinary Studies, encompassing Peace and Justice Studies, International Studies, and Art. His Art minor included Drawing, Photography, Acrylic Painting I and II, Oil Painting, and Art History. Art History may have a stereotype of being the most boring class anyone could take; it is just one of those classes you must take. However, with the insight of my art professor and an engaged class, Miller learned how art has engaged and supported artists, communities, and cultures throughout history. Art History provides a viewpoint on how art and culture are composed together and create meaning. After all, the Stone age is referencing art, the creation of figures on stone.

Influences

One artist Miller continues to enjoy learning about is Pablo Picasso, known as one of the greatest painters in modern history. Picasso led the Cubism art style in the early 20th century, an Avant-guard challenging the stereotypes in the art world at the time. Best known for his work Guernica, Picasso created the enormous 11’x25’ painting as a protest, an anti-war statement against the bombing by Nazis of the Spanish town in 1937.  Picasso used Guernica to raise awareness, speaking out against fascism, the military, and systems of death. This led to raising funds for relief efforts from the pain and injustices of the war. Miller's interest in Picasso grew when he visited the Pablo Picasso Musée in Paris in 2019, where he read details about original paintings, drawings, and quick sketches over the artist’s life.

Art in Social movements

Social conscience art and social justice movements have always been about creating something new while challenging the present status quo, giving new life, and a new perspective on reality itself. Miller is interested in how art shapes social movements and speaks against injustices or the logic of empire. This includes how his artwork can build social consciousness for the viewer and build a language of anti-imperialism for the learner of new life.    

Art movements are born out of a social reality that is often pushing back against the status quo. Social realism and social conscience art are examples, seeking what is the truth, what is happening actually occurring, or is it our imagination, or maybe propaganda? Or in the case of Picasso and Cubism, some art pushes to ask what is real and challenge the status quo by altering what the viewer sees as real. Strange angles and geometric spaces with no preparations of the figure provide a lens to see reality beyond the limits of gravity and proportion.

Today's movements seek to understand to transform people and their relationship to place and meaning. Using the history or language of anti-imperialistic struggle, Miller sees art today as beginning to emerge as a place for reimagining, rebirthing, and empowering participants. Do we have to demand the artist choose a past perspective within the art movements in the world? Can we have the capacity to see how all art movements have participated in social consciousness? Is life not just about interpreting reality as you see it but also how others may perceive reality?

Painting Styles -

Portraiture –

Miller enjoys working with portraiture in realism and post-impressionist style. The composition looks “real” while also enjoying the wide variety of colors from a Van Gogh post-impressionist style. This process is created with brushes that are best to blend colors on the canvas while using mediums that aren’t too thick. This style of influence is seen in the number of self-portraits and paintings of Frida Kahlo and Pablo Picasso that Miller has painted. Social Realism is also an influential style in some of Millers' work. Max Ginsburg is a well-established Social Realism painter in New York that has influenced Miller. Such paintings like Worker of the Uprising and Chelsea Manning are examples of social realism in a portraiture composition. 

Landscape –

Landscapes in Millers' work includes influences from post-impressionism, with a bit of abstract expressionism and abstract minimalism. Socially conscience art is also seen in some of Millers' landscape works. For example, in We Overlap abstract expressionism with visibility of a distant landscape depicts the artist's interpretation of current realities of nature and humans while in a global pandemic. One of Millers' more socially conscience works, We Overlap, speaks to the interest of humans to control nature. Using only palette knives, the texture of thick mediums provides an abstract expressionism feel. The artist asks, can we not just survive with nature but thrive together with nature? The Giverny series in Miller's work concentrates on bold colors and visible textures from tick mediums used in the pieces. Therefore, there is more visibility as post-impressionist paintings than Impressionism or realism styles, sorry Monet.

Abstract –

Often seen as much more concerned with an interest in feeling than conveying reality on the canvass abstract expressionism is fun, wild, and explosive with loose and quick brush strokes. Not everyone enjoys abstract works, but the secret is getting to know the reasons the artist chose to make the abstract pieces. Examples of this style in Miller's work include Sky Abstract, Nature Abstract, and the Summer Abstract series, which also allude to the artist's interest in creating pieces about nature. Furthermore, Miller's other abstract works like Abstract Sunset are examples of minimalism. Particularly, abstract minimalism or modern art minimalism. Using colors in nature Abstract Sunset provides deep blues and vibrant greens to display landscape and to celebrate nature.

Painting Techniques

Millers' painting techniques include processes that focus on color and various color hues on the canvas. In mixing various colors of paint on the pallet with his brushes, Miller adds a higher verity of color hues to the painting. Adding greens to yellow and white to the yellow-green adds to the yellow hues and yellow-green hues or colors in a color scheme.

Miller mixes colors with only one or two brushstrokes of paint at a time, then applies the paint to the canvas. He then mixes more of the paints together with his brushes and adds the new paint mix to the canvas. This may bring some perceived inconsistency of color values and shades, but in reality, this brings out a wider color pallet and contrast to the canvas, and with it, a bit of liveliness. He prefers creating purples, greens, and oranges by mixing the primary colors, ensuring bright and vivid color schemes, although a painter has to have ALL the paints.

Miller also uses various mediums and gels, which are mixed into the paints. The liquid gel helps thin the paint for better color mixing and a longer drying period, making the process similar to how one would use oil paints. Extra-heavy paint medium is mixed into the paint to add elasticity and thickness, providing peaks and textures throughout the painting. Extra-heavy paint medium works well when using painting knives instead of brushes, which Miller has tried in several works.

Finally, the canvass is given an initial isolation coat for final display. This helps keep the original color, regardless of the varnishes that are later applied. Varnishes can be made and applied in several ways. Artists looking to preserve their work find it fitting to ensure the varnish used is archival, and more cautiously from a named brand. The final protectant given to all of Miller's original artworks is Goldens Archival Satin Varnish Spray from an aerosol can.