“Still Moments”
Representational Still Life and Landscape Paintings by
Nancy Bea Miller
May 28th – June 21st, 2008
Opening Reception for the artist: Saturday, June 7th from 1 to 4 pm
Put a few pieces of fruit, a vase and some flowers on a table, and the French word for the result is a Nature morte—dead nature, literally. But when Nancy Bea Miller puts her brush to canvas, she depicts arrangements that are natural, honest, and realistic in more ways than just her style of painting. Whether it be a classical floral arrangement with a stray bonbon, or sumptuous looking doughnuts, each one of Miller’s paintings is a Still Life—her tomatoes roll off the table, her flowers wilt, and her crisp and springy color scheme shines with daylight. However, her paintings dig for a deeper meaning than just for their natural, honest appeal. Nancy Bea Miller finds the complexity behind the naturalism and enables us to see behind the simple qualities of objects and food. She points us to different realms of realism.
There is nothing contrived about her compositions. In each one of Nancy Bea Miller’s works, a moment in a life is presented to the viewer, and much of the time that life is her own. “I am growing butternut squash this year because I read that they keep for months. If all goes to plan, I’ll be able to paint squash that I grew all winter and then eat it too. Sounds a bit cannibalistic, I suppose.” But it is just this frank simplicity that permeates her canvases, and is one of the most distinguishing characteristics of Miller’s art. Like her candies and her tomatoes, there is nothing but real humanity and nature in each and every tableau. She endows a human spirit and receptivity to her seemingly lifeless objects. In her painting Conversations with Teapots, the family of teapots and a sugar holder seem to be caught in a familiarly human situation; the parents face each other in the midst of conversation, while the small child stands caught in between.
“I feel we all carry a calm, still sense of place within us, and I suspect it is this place I am also describing in my work,” says the artist. Indeed Miller’s compositions do recall those blissful moments when, with nothing else on the mind, an individual can sit and just contemplate peacefully whatever is in front of her or him. Hers are snapshots of the minor details of the everyday, and in them Nancy Bea Miller has found beauty and life. These paintings, there is not a trace of nature morte; there is only joie de vivre. And indeed, she preserves the vibrant life of these perishable subjects through her work; their tight rendering and vibrant qualities endow them with an immortal life that fractures time.
Endowment of real human qualities in food and everyday objects is a unique quality found in Miller’s work. Angelina’s Cake, a simple painting of a slice of cake with white frosting, represents the angelic character Miller has endowed this painting with. And while this cake may seem angelic by its name and appearance, there are multiple layers that the cake contains beneath its white frosting. A sponge cake is extremely absorbent; it is able to preserve flavors for a long time. Similarly, a human being is able to preserve emotions for a long time through experiences. The connection between humans and food becomes clearer in Miller’s work because the line between animate and inanimate is blurred. However, we still question whether it is just a cake or if the cake is living with the ability to communicate a message. So, is it now just a “piece of cake?”
Nancy Bea Miller’s work is simple, delicate and intense. These three words describe what can be seen from the surface of her paintings and the vast meanings her work has. Surrealism is the world we step into when looking at her paintings. Everything in her work is placed for a specific reason and the way they are placed must be questioned. Miller is well aware of space in her art; she keeps in mind the reality and the absent reality to create life in the simplest form.
