Brad Miller is widely recognized for his nature-based ceramic and branch-form sculptures. Miller explains, “The main mystery in life is how we get here.” Miller’s fascination with the history of natural forms reconciles biology and archeology - the past and the present - into artworks of pure line and form.
Constantly reconfiguring nature’s most persistent ordering systems is central to Miller’s work. Close packing, cracking, dendritic systems, and spirals are a few of these familiar images. When systems move between order and disorder, in the dynamic middle ground of changing patterns, Miller finds his muses.
With time, Miller learned that a handful of these physical manifestations have for thousands of years been internalized and transformed into content laden symbols throughout all of art history. Today’s technologies push the limits of seeing into and out to the edges of the universe. These new views continually confirm that familiar patterns are found at all levels of explored scales of time and space. Miller’s intention is to permeate his work with these timeless and familiar symbols as they dance between order and chaos.
Brad Miller is interested in capturing organic systems through the creation of abstract representations, often using wood, ceramics, and paper for both their physical and conceptual properties. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Oregon, Eugene. Born in Hillsboro, OR, in 1950, Brad Miller now lives and works in Venice Beach, CA.
Miller has had solo exhibitions at Harvey Meadows Gallery, Aspen, CO; Edward Cella Art & Architecture, Los Angeles, CA; Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Margo Jacobsen Gallery, Portland, OR; Bellas Artes, Santa Fe, NM; University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE; and Campo S. Angelo, Venice, Italy.
Group exhibitions include Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard, CA; Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans, LA; Houston Center for Crafts, Houston, TX; The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan; Pasadena City College Art Gallery, Pasadena, CA; and Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. He received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1994) and his work is included in the collections such of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
