Darren Lee Miller

Dream-Like Sharp-Witted Snaps

Darren Lee Miller

New York, USA

“My practice centers on bodies of knowledge from historically underrepresented communities, and examines those disciplines from a queer perspective. I enact performances for the camera, and I aim the lens at cultural signifiers of power. I show how the organization of interior and outdoor spaces reflects emotion, subconscious, and intimacy, and I seek to better understand how we all engage in communication and empathy in our interrelationships. I focus on the vernacular as found in the Adirondacks, New England, rural Ohio and Pennsylvania, and I handle lens-based media, both traditional and digital, in ways that work to create a dream-like or psychological space.

In this project, “Exercises in Empathy”, I inwww.darrenleemiller.com vite people of all ages to share their insecurities, anxieties, and strengths, without fear of judgment. Using ordinary objects and our own bodies we create totems or perform new rituals for the camera, to help us venture into a shared dream space. Sometimes we appear together in the images, and other times one of us is seen alone. We make empathic connections with one another, and by extension with the viewer. Sexuality, fantasy, desire, and decorum inform the recorded interactions. The resulting works depict moments that are at once seductive and repulsive, both familiar and strange. My collaborators are named in the titles of the images, and I am grateful for their willingness to confide in me and trust the process. ”

Darren Lee Miller

Emerging with a Bundle of Sticks, collaboration with Gwen Singert, 2019 Archival Inkjet Print 50.8 x 40.64 cm

Darren Lee Miller

Unlucky, collaboration with John Provost, 2015 Archival Inkjet Print 40.64 x 50.8 cm

Darren Lee Miller is an artist, educator, regional and national exhibitions. His works curator, and writer. He is Chair of Photo- have been acquired by Adirondack graphy and Associate Professor at the Colum- Experience, the Mu-seum on Blue Mountain bus College of Art & Design in Columbus, Lake, Union College , Allegheny College, the Ohio. He was recently awarded a Fulbright Pennsylvania Historical & Museum ResearchFellowshipto conduct a community Commission, and private collectors. He art project, “Palavrasna MinhaBoca”, at the earned a BFA from The New York State São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Bauru, College of Ceramics at Alfred University, and Brazil. an MFA from the School of the Museum of

His teaching, curatorial work, and artwork Fine Arts at Tufts University. have been recognized through residencies at Blue Mountain Center, the Vermont Studio Center, the Crawford County Historical Text by the artist Society, the University of Puerto Rico, and in 94