Content provided in partnership with
Melissa Miller at Moody - Houston
Art in America, Dec, 2003 by Michael Duncan
The serenity in Melissa Miller's paintings and drawings of the past three years seems well earned. Known over the past two decades for raucous allegorical paintings depicting exotic animals enduring upheavals and physical transformations, Miller presents new becalmed tableaux featuring the harmonious coexistence of assorted creatures who have transcended violent instincts, primal fears and rivalries of breed. The tranquil, conflict-free groupings describe a barnyard utopia that might well serve as a model for so-called higher species.
- Most Popular Articles in Arts
- Art since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism
- Free-standing cardboard sculpture
- What makes a successful business person? Business people who are tops in ...
- Take advantage of local advertising: TV, newspaper or magazines? If your ...
- Tino Sehgal at the ICA
- More »
The show's major work, Farm (2002), is like a less stilted version of Edward Hicks's Peaceable Kingdom. In this 7-foot-wide painting, a centrally placed llama squats in a pasture among idle and ambling cattle, deer, goats and birds. Miller's luscious brushwork conveys an ostrich's fluffy feathers and a cow's taut flank, while quick strokes of pale green map out the flat Texas terrain. A dog yawns and stretches, his shepherding duties no longer required in the laissez-faire, communal arena. Miller's egalitarian realm seems happily desublimated, stripped of nature's menace and the compulsion of survival instincts.
This pacific atmosphere pervades the other works, and diversity is lovingly embraced. One of the sheep in Sheep, Goats, Llama (2001) makes eye contact with the viewer as if offering an invitation to join the mixed-species herd, while in Cluster (2003) two giant oxen and a bevy of leisurely monkeys casually gather around a diminutive bear. The paintings derive their charm from both the gorgeous paint handling and the unlikeliness of the groupings. An air of tender comedy based on a kind of wish fulfillment enlivens the works.
Miller also presented 10 small gouaches that functioned as studies for the paintings and stand as lovely miniatures in their own right. Paint is thinned in background areas to achieve watercolor-like effects that complement delicate renderings of a deer at a watering hole and a sheep beneath a flowering tree. In a culture that endorses violence and lurid acts of aggression, Miller's depictions of pastoral peace are crucial, prescriptive balm.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group
Find Research Guides for:
Find Featured Titles for: Reference
- Academe
- African American Review
- African Arts
- African Studies Review
- Afro-Americans in New York Life and History
- Alabama Heritage
- Alabama Review
- American Mathematical Monthly, The
- Anglican Theological Review
- Annals of Dyslexia
- Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ)
- Auk, The
- Australian Journal of Anthropology, The
- Christian Century
- Natural History