Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 6

Greg Miller
GOOD

2023

About the Item

These innovative, mixed-media paintings render familiar imagery and text into assemblages saturated with poignant slices of Americana. Nostalgic nods to ubiquitous tropes, such as billboards, pulp fictions, comic books, magazine adds and cinema marquees figure in fractions across the canvas. With carefully selected images he composes vignettes to articulate a vernacular about American life and the pervasive symbology of American consumer culture. Disparate objects and figures combine their relationship to one another, coalesce and become a singular subject. The exhibition’s title, suggests a fairytale and both the glamour and illusion which Hollywood exports. Extracting familiar pictorial codes from the popular culture of his youth, he constructs a visual vocabulary of accumulated experiences. In his examination of sign systems, modes of transmission, and production methods Miller creates paradoxes around the conventional iconography of post-war America. The artist’s uniquely 'California' perspective interweaves high and low culture, labor, and leisure to assemble a complex of images and text. Growing up in northern California, Miller’s grandfather would take him on road trips to ghost-towns around Lake Tahoe. While exploring the decaying homes people had abandoned, he was struck by the resourcefulness used to gild the walls with collages of old magazines and newspaper clippings. These archaeological ruins were a foil in contradiction with the tinsel of the aspirational advertisements dressing their walls. Subsequently, Miller became a collector of vintage magazines, newspapers, zines and popular culture which he uses today as a part of his medium. The exhibition’s title comes from the work Once Upon a Time, which illustrates many of the themes, and techniques characteristic of Miller’s oeuvre. Central to the image is a black-and-white painting of a vintage Hollywood city-scape during its “Golden Age”. Super-imposed, is the profile of a comic book action-hero surveying the vista. To the right, Grisaille is applied with spray paint to produce a photorealistic portrait of a woman seductively peering out from what appears to be a cropped still-frame. The scratched surface alludes to wear, and the passage of time. Collaged below is a text clipping of “the right” with a clock next to it, suggesting “time”. On the far left, a faceted crystal highball glass is labeled with a clipping reading “ACTION”.
More From This SellerView All
  • TRUTH
    By Greg Miller
    Located in Santa Monica, CA
    These innovative, mixed-media paintings render familiar imagery and text into assemblages saturated with poignant slices of Americana. Nostalgic nods to ubiquitous tropes, such as bi...
    Category

    2010s Pop Art Portrait Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Magazine Paper

  • Wild Western
    By Greg Miller
    Located in Santa Monica, CA
    These innovative, mixed-media paintings render familiar imagery and text into assemblages saturated with poignant slices of Americana. Nostalgic nods to ubiquitous tropes, such as bi...
    Category

    2010s Pop Art Mixed Media

    Materials

    Canvas, Acrylic, Magazine Paper

  • Once Upon a Time
    By Greg Miller
    Located in Santa Monica, CA
    These innovative, mixed-media paintings render familiar imagery and text into assemblages saturated with poignant slices of Americana. Nostalgic nods to ubiquitous tropes, such as bi...
    Category

    2010s Pop Art Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Acrylic, Magazine Paper

  • History
    By Greg Miller
    Located in Santa Monica, CA
    Drawing on the cultural and geographic influences of his California roots, Greg Miller explores images of the American urban and rural landscape of the mid-twentieth century. The wor...
    Category

    2010s Pop Art Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Acrylic, Magazine Paper, Resin

  • Cool
    By Greg Miller
    Located in Santa Monica, CA
    Drawing on the cultural and geographic influences of his California roots, Greg Miller explores images of the American urban and rural landscape of the mid-twentieth century. The wor...
    Category

    2010s Pop Art Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Acrylic, Magazine Paper, Resin

  • Art of Jazz
    By Greg Miller
    Located in Santa Monica, CA
    Drawing on the cultural and geographic influences of his California roots, Greg Miller explores images of the American urban and rural landscape of the mid-twentieth century. The wor...
    Category

    2010s Pop Art Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Resin, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Magazine Paper

You May Also Like
  • Donald Duck Shell Cartoon Contemporary Pop Art by British Urban Graffiti Artist
    By Chris Pegg
    Located in Preston, GB
    Donald Duck & Shell Oil Cartoon Contemporary Pop Art by British Urban Graffiti Artist Chris Pegg entitled 'Riot'. Chris Pegg is a self-taught Street Artist producing artwork with a s...
    Category

    2010s Pop Art Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Paint, Cotton Canvas, Ink, Mixed Media, Oil, Spray Paint, Acryli...

  • "Make Your Own Rules"-Magazine Collage, Acrylic & Spray Paint on Canvas
    By Amy Smith
    Located in West Hollywood, CA
    Amy Smith is a self-educated contemporary artist. Born in New Jersey, she moved to Los Angeles where she found inspiration, mentors, and support in the Street Art community. In her...
    Category

    2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

    Materials

    Canvas, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Magazine Paper

  • "Ying Yang"-Magazine Collage, Acrylic & Spray Paint on Canvas
    By Amy Smith
    Located in West Hollywood, CA
    Amy Smith is a self-educated contemporary artist. Born in New Jersey, she moved to Los Angeles where she found inspiration, mentors, and support in the Street Art community. In her...
    Category

    2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

    Materials

    Canvas, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Magazine Paper

  • "Make Noise"-Magazine Collage, Acrylic & Spray Paint on Canvas
    By Amy Smith
    Located in West Hollywood, CA
    Amy Smith is a self-educated contemporary artist. Born in New Jersey, she moved to Los Angeles where she found inspiration, mentors, and support in the Street Art community. In her...
    Category

    2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

    Materials

    Canvas, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Magazine Paper

  • "Brave"-Magazine Collage, Acrylic & Spray Paint on Canvas
    By Amy Smith
    Located in West Hollywood, CA
    Amy Smith is a self-educated contemporary artist. Born in New Jersey, she moved to Los Angeles where she found inspiration, mentors, and support in the Street Art community. In her Collage Portrait Series, Amy Smith uses photography, and layers of hand cut stencils, and torn recycled fashion magazine...
    Category

    2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

    Materials

    Canvas, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Magazine Paper

  • "Keep Your Head Up"-Magazine Collage, Acrylic & Spray Paint on Canvas
    By Amy Smith
    Located in West Hollywood, CA
    Amy Smith is a self-educated contemporary artist. Born in New Jersey, she moved to Los Angeles where she found inspiration, mentors, and support in the Street Art community. In her...
    Category

    2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

    Materials

    Canvas, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Magazine Paper

Recently Viewed

View All