David Miller

Artist Statement
A San Francisco native and lifelong resident of the Bay Area, my landscape paintings reflect my enjoyment of this beautiful area.
I am a representational painter, and
want viewers to recognize what I paint, even where I have painted. However, I
am more interested in the pictorial qualities of my paintings than in photorealism, so what I see becomes raw material for the interplay between representation and abstraction. A pattern of abstract forms and marks, when viewed together, become trees, grass, clouds; metaphors for a feeling, an experience, that is more real and more alive than a precise illustration of appearance.
Biography
I wanted to be an artist when I was very young, and drew a lot, but there was little exposure to art and few opportunities for instruction. When I finished engineering school I took art classes for a while, but the gap between my aspirations and my skills overwhelmed me. After wandering many years in a creative desert, Art grabbed me by the throat and would not be denied. I started taking classes wherever I could find them and haven’t stopped drawing and painting since. I follow the advice of Apelles of Cos (painter to Alexander the Great), “no day without a line.”