LONDON.- PM/AM is presenting a selection of works produced by New York artist Anthony Miler. The Brooklyn based contemporary artist produces works which contrast in approach and form. In the process of conceptualising his pieces he visits a number of personal experiences of the sensory and existential, allowing carefully considered expressions to emerge through various artistic techniques.
In spring 2020 Anthony arrived in west London to begin what became a two month residency with the Fores Project in the north west of the city. During this period he was able to apply significant focus to various artistic processes, each displaying a different aspect of the interior insight that guides his hand. In this solo show PM/AM presents a selection of work produced during this period; his graphite work–a highly charged yet materially reductionist body of work, contrasting with a single piece from his quieter colour works, which explore an aesthetic and conceptual stillness.
The graphite works possess an expressive energy captured in a framework of lines, scrawls and patches on raw canvas. These apply narrative and character to formations akin to the more freeform works of William Anastasi or Lucio Pozzi. On occasion the skeletal forms are filled out with loose blocks of colour, poised to break out of their boundings as soon as the viewer averts their gaze. Whilst utilising in an elemental sense the simplicity of primitive drawing, these graphite expressions coalesce and from them emerge forms and faces caught in moments of nonverbal, human communication.
Miler’s colour works, conversely, are built on flowing shape elements and a consciously gentle palette. These pieces have a sense of balance associated with Eastern aesthetics and the tonality of the Ukoyi-e works from Japan’s Edo period. Through a use of thinned acrylic, the canvas isn’t so much a surface under which the paint lies as a material into which the paint is subsumed like a dye. Where a lightness of touch and attention to essential details characterised the work of Hiroshige and his contemporaries, Miler imposes bolder constraints on his components. The simplified environments of these paintings could be seen as a refuge from a world fraught with anxiety. Graphical segments come together to form abstract, Miro-esque creatures gazing out from the canvas through mysterious eyes.
The deceptive simplicity of Anthony’s pieces hold on their surfaces mysterious lives caught in unknown spaces. This sentiment perhaps suggests Anthony’s experience of a world of deafening strangers, constant communication and hyper-colour entertainment, and the feeling that such an environment must momentarily be escaped.
