Sue A. Miller
My passion for the natural world grew through my upbringing in rural Ontario, Canada. I spent a great deal of time exploring my local environment -- forests, wetlands, and waterways -- which activated my imagination and provided me with solace, grounding me to a set of interconnected spaces whose beauty and complexity I found fascinating. This continues to propel my creative drive along with my commitment to sharing the message of responsible stewardship of the planet. Through a visual language that reflects the universal through the personal, my work aims to remind the viewer of our spiritual and primal connection to nature in the hopes of achieving a harmonious existence in the present and for our future.
With my roots in landscape painting, I often explore deeper into the microcosms of the natural elements resulting in a large collection of experimental abstracts using painting tools such as large palette knives and window squeegees, the reference to the natural environment everpresent. I am very inspired by the work of Gerhard Richter for his painting techniques and William Turner’s later work - his sublime visions of landscape. My subject matter oscillates between abstraction and reality, but the colour palette, mark-making and inspiration are the same and reflect my creative aims. The work evolves intuitively, using visual memory, exploring the basic and abstracted qualities of nature; transparency, reflection, depth, movement and texture. Layers of oil paint are applied and removed using tools such as pallet knives, squeegees and catalyst wedges, until an image emerges that reveals the essence of the subject. The mystery of humanity’s complex relationship with the environment are revealed at an emotional level.
In recent years I’ve been exploring immersive installation, including suspended sculpture and soundscapes, as a more effective way of creating experiential intimacy and connection. My work continues to be a process of psychogeography, an investment of the self into our natural surroundings, which ultimately calls on the viewer to question their own relationship and behaviour towards our environment.
Feature Wall
Oil Paintings
Past events
THE ICE PROJECT
An immersive installation focusing on our fragile Canadian Arctic
EXHIBITION 2022
Georgian College Campus Gallery, Barrie Ontario
The Ice Project draws attention to the state of crisis in our Arctic regions, in a language that is authentic to the artist. This solo, immersive installation offers a sensory, multi-media experience that aims to reconnect the viewer with our fragile environment and inspire responsible stewardship and climate action.
Included in this body of work are original oil paintings, original works on frosted mylar and Yupo paper, made into light boxes, and audio sound clips of the Arctic environment. These sounds include melting ice, a calving glacier, an iceberg hitting ground, and a Bowhead whale, a species native to the Arctic.
*the ambient sound of the Bowhead Whale, originally recorded by Ocean Conservation Research Organization, courtesy of the Macaulay Library, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithica NY.
THE PRIMORDAL WATERS PROJECT
Primordial Waters Immersive Installation
EXHIBITION 2018
Orillia Museum of Art & History, Ontario
Primordial Waters is an immersive installation inspired by shorelines of Georgian Bay Canada, but also from a broader perspective speaking to the innate human primal connection to water.
This exhibition included large scale paintings, a central kinetic sculpture created with suspended Snake Grass reeds, sand & detritus from the shore. Also included is a layered soundscape of shoreline recordings.
At present, the installation is in storage waiting for it’s next incarnation.