“I favor this gridded and repetitive format because it gives me the room to do both. The paintings can take a lot of abuse; so long as there are one or two representations of the subject that are close to a signifier that the viewer is familiar with (a duck-looking duck, a banana-looking banana), the game of representation suddenly inverts and there is endless room for distortion and alienation. Typically, in representation, we strive to get close enough to saying the thing without being didactic or obvious. But if I paint a bland duck-looking duck in one portion of the painting, it becomes painfully boring to paint or look at a duck-looking duck a second time. I am launched into this fight over and over again to find some new way to see and say “duck!” To win the fight and keep the painting interesting, I have to push the physical qualities of paint and stretch the conceptual framework of the signifier. “
In conversation with Joshua Miller for Floor Magazine. Find out more by reading the full interview here;
https://www.floorrmagazine.com/issue-17/joshua-miller
Read more interviews here; https://contemporaryartprojects.art.blog/category/interviews/
Image credit: Utility And Apathy Human Asses and Utility And Apathy Saint Anthony, 2016 © Joshua Miller
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