Denise Miller
Artist Statement
Denise Miller’s art is a lyric and narrative movement towards witness and response. Their art is mixed media incorporating primary sources, watercolor, printmaking, and found objects. In their work, they mine. They mine history, memory, and identify how the malleability of both has impacted queer people, Black people, women, and any combination of thereof. They mine their own memory, the memory of their family, the memory of story, the memory of history, the memory of primary sources, the collective memory of our country, and finally the stories and communities that complicate this collective memory. This mining, they believe is critical because it is revelatory: in mining deeply, with lens of openness, interrogation, fearlessness, and compassion, the malleabilty between individuals and histories, between intentions and actions, between memory and reality reveal what is malleable. That malleable space is where the power to identify and rectify impact lies. It is where their work becomes witness, as their work address and reflects issues of injustice and the often-invisible structures of power to make them more visible. Visibility demands witness and witness demands response. The relationship between history and memory is constant and dynamic; it is the site of malleability; it is reflexive, the one mirroring and revealing the power of each. Reaching toward the heart of this complication, is where the reader and viewer will find their work.
Venues
