Louisiana Petrolandscapes

The drilling rig and "Christmas trees" (i.e. oil well valve stations) in these paintings have been my companions for many hours during the past week. They embody for me the strong mix of emotions and associations most of us know well at this stage of the petroleum era.


King of the Bayou #1 (12 X 24"). Sold.




King of the Bayou #2 (12 X 24"). Sold.



Christmas Trees on the Bayou #1 (18 X 24"). Sold.


Christmas Trees on the Bayou #2 (18 X 48"). Sold.


Christmas Tree Looking Out (18 X 24"). Available through Octavia Gallery in New Orleans.


A pair of alligator friends who didn't take their eyes off of me during the three days I painted 35 feet from their nest. The larger one is the size of a German shepherd. His/her mate is a little smaller.

I plan to make more trips to Louisiana in the coming year and have signed on with the excellent Octavia Gallery on Magazine Street in New Orleans, where I will have a one-man show in March of 2012.

A Coffee Table Catalog of My Recent Work

Edward "Bear" Miller
Landscapes, Figures, and Portraits by Oil Paintings 2009 - 2011 | Make Your Own Book

Foundry Gallery in April and May

I have three Key Bridge paintings hanging at the Foundry Gallery, near Dupont Circle. They will be up until the end of the month, when I aim to put up two or three new pieces based on the Ecuadorian coast for May. The Foundry Gallery is at 1314 18th Street, NW DC 20036. It's open Wednesdays through Sundays in the afternoon. (202) 463-0203. www.foundrygallery.org.

I won't be at the Foundry for First Friday on May 6, as I'll be working on a "Petrolandscapes" series of plein-air pieces in southern Louisiana. I never cease to be amazed by how petroleum has become such an integral part of our lives and landscapes. This is obvious almost everywhere at this point, from our transcontinental grids of pavement to the shockingly awesome metal birds roaming the skies. I have been especially struck on the extraction side of the equation by the juxtapositions I've witnessed among the machinery at work in the marshes and bayous of southern Louisiana and by the extraordinary scale and pace of activity occuring in the Ecuadorian Amazon. I have lots of family in southern Louisiana and my wife is from Ecuador, where I lived for five years. Depending on how this initial series of plein-air studies in Louisiana goes, you may be seeing a whole bunch more petrolandscapes from me in the months to come. My aim is that they will be beautiful, grounding, and thought-provoking. Maybe my work will spark some creative re-assessment of our petroleum-based reality.

Recent Portraits

Piotrek (18 X 24"). Sold.


detail

I have grown keen on doing larger portraits of intimate friends and family. I enjoy doing them and they generate good feedback and attract commissions. Specifically, I was musing with my wife late one night about how what I REALLY want to do when I REALLY hit my stride is big (72" X 48") nude life-size portraits in landscapes or in interior spaces with landscapes in the window(s). That next morning, the NY Times reviewed the show of German romantic painters of figures in rooms with views at the Metropolitan Museum. The timing was good, because I was headed up there anyway for the Great Upheaval show at the Guggenheim and the Abstract Expressionists show at the MoMA. Maribel and I saw all those shows and collections and had a good morning ramble through Chelsea galleries with host-brother Will, the subject of the effort above. It's a promising start to a work in progress.


Father and Son/Self. Both 16" X 20". oil on canvas.

These two hang well together. We just embarked with my wife on an attempt to bike all 185 miles of the C&O Canal, something we've talked about doing since I started riding a bike at age six. We were doing very well, but the forecast for Saturday was for possible tornadoes and three inches of rain, so we quit at mile 140 on Friday, hitched a ride to Cumberland, and celebrated my fortieth birthday over dinner at Todd and Ellen Gray's Equinox on Connecticut Avenue. The following painting was a done in anticipation of the odyssey to come.


Key Bridge in March, from Virginia (24 X 48", oil). Sold.


C&O Canal from Key Bridge (18 X 24", oil). Sold.


Rock Creek Reflections (18 X 24"), oil on canvas. Sold.

This last piece is a gem that I just pulled out into the light of day and have been enjoying and wanted to share here. It is from under the Mass Ave Bridge along Rock Creek during the fall of 2009.

Portraits

The Artist's Wife (or America) (30 X 40")

Launch Party Silent Auction Offering

Murky Heights (16 X 20"), oil on canvas. Auctioned/Sold.
On Thursday, March 10 at 6:30pm at the Warner Theater Atrium, the Environmental Film Festival is having its Launch Party, with all kinds of cool stuff up for grabs at the silent auction. I've donated this painting. I think it's a really good piece that speaks of direct experience with the dueling thrills of modern engineering and riparian reality.

The Artist's Father in India

The Artist's Father in India (16 X 20")

A year ago, my father, Maribel, and I went to India. It was Maribel's and my second time in India, but our first time in the north: Varanasi, Bodhgaya, Rajasthan, and Agra. My father is an avid adventurer, hiker, tennis player, liberal, lover of paintings and music... interests we have shared and developed together over my lifetime. It was an honor and joy when he chose to come with us to India, because Maribel and I generally travel in dirtbag style and Dad said he trusted our judgement on how to move and where to stay. Pretty cool coming from a federal judge. Dad and I made a side venture to Ranakpur (near Udaipur) to see an ancient Jain temple, and I snapped a photo of him at a moment when he was immersed in his thoughts and impressions and not conscious of being photographed. Here he is in the midst of communicating something to me, his son. It's worth mentioning that we look a lot alike.

This painting is about mortal recognition of the larger and alternative circumstances of existence. My father serves as the subject, but it is in many regards a self-portrait. India is such an eye-opening place on so many levels. One's consciousness of self, destitution, quiet bliss, religious pandemonium, the diversity of humanity, and our connection to the natural world is heightened and tested. I have practiced yoga since high school, but it was in Kerala five years ago, during my second week of a month-long yoga teacher training course at the Sivananda Ashram, that I experienced the opening of my third eye for the first time. Although I am an atheist, Hindu cosmology is the most compelling notion and breakdown of the universe and its forces that I have found, and I never tire of admiring its gods in temples, museums, and on kitschy posters and t-shirts. My father still waxes poetic about his three weeks in India, and this painting attempts to capture the catharsis and blossoming that we experienced there.