Bio
Glen Miller is a native of East Tennessee now living in Greenville SC. Glen has a BFA in drawing and painting from East Tennessee State University and an MA in Art and Education from the University of South Florida with further graduate study from the University of Tennessee. Glen began his teaching career as a secondary public school art teacher in Greenville South Carolina in 1979, has since taught drawing and painting at Newberry College, Converse College, and Furman University. The artist currently maintains a studio near Travelers Rest, SC. In addition to the visual arts Glen also plays several musical instruments, designed and built his very efficient home and studio, and often wanders the mountain trails of the Southern Appalachian mountains. The artist enjoys working outside the studio as well, doing plein-air painting and on site gallery-sized drawing installations. The artist has had 23 solo exhibitions since 2003. Glen has been represented and received awards in many group and juried exhibitions and is represented in several personal and academic collections. The artist is currently represented by Hampton III Gallery in Greenville SC.
Artist’s Statement
I grew up in the mountains of East Tennessee and I have spent many hours since wandering the trails of the Southern Appalachian mountains. My imagery reflects these experiences with nature and culture and sometimes just ordinary life experiences which lend themselves to the painted image. Most of the characters in my work are fictional and the settings are often constructed from elements encountered in my experiences. I have come to think of my process as creating fictions from selected truths, unresolved narratives open to viewer interpretation and association. My interest with much of the work is to create images that evoke and perhaps celebrate quiet places and times, still moments that allow us to hear from greater depths, and images that suggest an individual search. While I do incorporate metaphor and personal symbolism, I like to think the viewer can find a personal connection to the work.
The work has several layers for me that operate simultaneously. My natural proclivity for the narrative and the “presence” of form as defined by light derive from my initial untrained motivation and is interwoven with my love for more formal and abstract concepts of composition and the poetry of color. I prefer a subjective and painterly approach to the imagery, hopefully bringing the image to the present and referencing the reality that we think about, the one we remember or imagine, the one that becomes story.