All images © Steven Miller 2007
ARTIST STATEMENTS
Milky
As an artist I connect to the theatricality inherent in photography via creating staged environments and predicaments. I am interested in the dialogue between the subject and the staged situation which can provoke unexpected outcomes.
With Milky, the camera documented the immediate emotional reactions of 60 individuals being doused with cold milk. In the images, I considered the materiality of milk as a metaphor for the nature of sexuality; something which is fluid, tangible, and ephemeral.
Depicting friends, lovers, and complete strangers coated in the fluids of another animal, the photographs are meant to suggest both the pleasures and risks associated with sexual exchange.
As an artist I connect to the theatricality inherent in photography via creating staged environments and predicaments. I am interested in the dialogue between the subject and the staged situation which can provoke unexpected outcomes.
With Milky, the camera documented the immediate emotional reactions of 60 individuals being doused with cold milk. In the images, I considered the materiality of milk as a metaphor for the nature of sexuality; something which is fluid, tangible, and ephemeral.
Depicting friends, lovers, and complete strangers coated in the fluids of another animal, the photographs are meant to suggest both the pleasures and risks associated with sexual exchange.
Bound
In Bound, rope symbolizes the mental, physical and spiritual ties that bind. Materially, the subjects are bound to self, others, and inseparably the unknown. The tied ropes are constricting or loose, a representation of the various connections and disconnections between friends, lovers and strangers. Ropes around the subjects’ heads act as a metaphor for how we’re wrapped up inside our perceptions and simultaneously, by emphasizing yet obscuring the face, the viewer is encouraged to consider other aspects of the body.
In many respects this work is informed by the theatrical, but here the darkened stage is replaced by utter blackness. The series aims to plot emotional points between figures that stand effortlessly in the void to those that are contorted in space. Some subjects appear completely at ease with those existential limits—their environment cradles them. Others seem to struggle with their conflicting fate. It raises the question: How comfortable are we when supported by the knowledge that, while some things are indeed know-able, the unknown remains both tangible and inevitable?
In Bound, rope symbolizes the mental, physical and spiritual ties that bind. Materially, the subjects are bound to self, others, and inseparably the unknown. The tied ropes are constricting or loose, a representation of the various connections and disconnections between friends, lovers and strangers. Ropes around the subjects’ heads act as a metaphor for how we’re wrapped up inside our perceptions and simultaneously, by emphasizing yet obscuring the face, the viewer is encouraged to consider other aspects of the body.
In many respects this work is informed by the theatrical, but here the darkened stage is replaced by utter blackness. The series aims to plot emotional points between figures that stand effortlessly in the void to those that are contorted in space. Some subjects appear completely at ease with those existential limits—their environment cradles them. Others seem to struggle with their conflicting fate. It raises the question: How comfortable are we when supported by the knowledge that, while some things are indeed know-able, the unknown remains both tangible and inevitable?
Referencing Nature at Seattle Art Museum
Rental/Sales Gallery
The three pieces included in Referencing Nature are from a larger body of work that investigate how the "natural" world is framed in today's society.
I view these works as chapters in a book - small narratives that join together to tell a larger tale. With Searching for Clues, a man buries his head in the earth to find answers that logic and reason cannot provide. The Bird Eater exists in that place where social outcasts forget civilization as it forgets them. Each of these scenarios was created with the idea of continuing the dialogue about what is natural, what is permissible, and where society draws the line between the two.
For example, a German zoo introduced four female penguins from Sweden in an attempt to get three homosexual penguin couples to breed. Protests from gay rights groups forced the zoo to end the experiment. In America, conservative media rejoiced when one of the Central Park Zoo's male penguins left his male partner for a female. By anthropomorphizing animals through a lens of our own desires and fears related to sex, we project what we wish to see in animal behavior.
These and other absurdities in the news debating the "unnaturalness" of homosexuality at large provoked me to do my own field research, which ultimately led to Proof of Homosexuality in Nature. Ten male rabbit-costumed couples happily fornicate in a forested setting, oblivious to anything but their own pleasure. Aspects of the photograph were created with Robert Mapplethorpe's work in mind, a man who presented his own sexual underworld with an impassive eye and was deemed obscene by the conservative politicians of his time. A poignant question remains: Why are we still fighting over something as personal and intimate as sexual desire?
The three pieces included in Referencing Nature are from a larger body of work that investigate how the "natural" world is framed in today's society.
I view these works as chapters in a book - small narratives that join together to tell a larger tale. With Searching for Clues, a man buries his head in the earth to find answers that logic and reason cannot provide. The Bird Eater exists in that place where social outcasts forget civilization as it forgets them. Each of these scenarios was created with the idea of continuing the dialogue about what is natural, what is permissible, and where society draws the line between the two.
For example, a German zoo introduced four female penguins from Sweden in an attempt to get three homosexual penguin couples to breed. Protests from gay rights groups forced the zoo to end the experiment. In America, conservative media rejoiced when one of the Central Park Zoo's male penguins left his male partner for a female. By anthropomorphizing animals through a lens of our own desires and fears related to sex, we project what we wish to see in animal behavior.
These and other absurdities in the news debating the "unnaturalness" of homosexuality at large provoked me to do my own field research, which ultimately led to Proof of Homosexuality in Nature. Ten male rabbit-costumed couples happily fornicate in a forested setting, oblivious to anything but their own pleasure. Aspects of the photograph were created with Robert Mapplethorpe's work in mind, a man who presented his own sexual underworld with an impassive eye and was deemed obscene by the conservative politicians of his time. A poignant question remains: Why are we still fighting over something as personal and intimate as sexual desire?
Dirt Wedding
Mythologies around the world include stories where a trickster figure interacts with dirt - usually to the amusement and disgust of the trickster's audience. These characters - Raven, Coyote, Legba, and Krishna - all use dirt to expose that culture's particular taboos and ultimately breaks new ground for what is acceptable.
What is dirt but matter out of place? A fried egg on a plate is food, but egg on someone's face is not. What is completely acceptable in one instance becomes filthy and unsettling in another context. Defining what is dirty in a society by default defines that which is taboo.
As American society has moved towards conservatism over the last decade, homosexuality has been represented as a threat to the institutions of marriage and culture. My dirt wedding was created in part to dismantle the rhetoric around marriage while simultaneously using humor and confusion to represent gay culture with a trickster's sensibilities.
Unable to marry another man, I instead married a pile of dirt in front of 60 people and re-enacted the trickster ritual of presenting something disgusting as acceptable. By inviting the guests to participate in the absurd celebration, the ceremony was brought to completion.
Mythologies around the world include stories where a trickster figure interacts with dirt - usually to the amusement and disgust of the trickster's audience. These characters - Raven, Coyote, Legba, and Krishna - all use dirt to expose that culture's particular taboos and ultimately breaks new ground for what is acceptable.
What is dirt but matter out of place? A fried egg on a plate is food, but egg on someone's face is not. What is completely acceptable in one instance becomes filthy and unsettling in another context. Defining what is dirty in a society by default defines that which is taboo.
As American society has moved towards conservatism over the last decade, homosexuality has been represented as a threat to the institutions of marriage and culture. My dirt wedding was created in part to dismantle the rhetoric around marriage while simultaneously using humor and confusion to represent gay culture with a trickster's sensibilities.
Unable to marry another man, I instead married a pile of dirt in front of 60 people and re-enacted the trickster ritual of presenting something disgusting as acceptable. By inviting the guests to participate in the absurd celebration, the ceremony was brought to completion.