Dan Miller- Carolyn Trouten- Drawing 1

Dan Miller was born in Castro Valley, California in 1961. He is an American artist. He is currently a resident at Creative Growth Art Center which is a studio space and gallery for artists with disabilities like Miller, who has Autism.


Dan MILLER  
untitled (ink w/circle), 2010, ink on paper, 22.01 x 30 inches

As a child Miller attended special education classes and summer camps. It was extremely important to his Mother that he got an education. Miller spent many nights working with is Mother and grandmother, whom are both schoolteachers, on learning to read and write. The time spent teaching Miller has stayed with him threw is life and often shows itself in his paintings. Meticulously writing the same words over and over again until he fills the paper up. The words are layered on so heavily that the often get lost in a mass of letters and thoughts. From a distance you may think it that the paintings are just lines upon lines scribbled on but as you get closer you begin to see the words and the time Miller spent laboring over his work.

Common words that show up in his work include Electrician, Light bulb and socket; Linking his work to his past once again. When he was a young, Miller would take apart Radio Clocks and overhead fans tinkering with tools and how things work. He was obsessed with tools and often looked through and studied is father’s catalogs Grainger’s hardware.

Miller has some lack of traditional communications alongside his Autism. But his art is a way he seems to communicate how he interacts with the world. These pieces of his memories of reading with his mom and taking apart clocks are very prominent in the paintings he creates. It is a window into his past and mind. As in the picture below of Light Bulbs.


Dan Miller
Untitled, 2012 ,Ink and acrylic on paper,42.5 × 53.5 inches

Dan Miller
Untitled,2012, Ink and acrylic on paper , 42.5 × 53.5 inches

With the help of Creative Growth Art Center Dan has honed his skills and gone from using scrap paper and books to twelve foot talk canvases. Dan has been featured in solo exhibitions in galleries such as Galerie Christian Berst, Ricco Maresca, New York and White Columns, New York. He has also done goup shows at Gavin Brown’s enterprise, Paris, and ABCD. Dan was featured at Frieze New York, The Armory Show, and NADA Miami. Dan has a feature in curator Christine Macel’s exhibition: Viva Arte Viva, in 2017. He’s the first artist with Autism to have his work acquired by the permanent collection of MoMA.


Dan MILLER
untitled, 2010, watercolor, marker, coloured pencil on paper, 11.81 x 17.72 inches

Miller’s art makes me feel like I am seeing into a different universe. One that is similar to ours but chaotic and repeating. Where reality is bent and sense does not make sense. I feel his work truly conveys how he sees the world and what about it stands out to him. In Miller’s work the repetition is soothing and relating to me; it adds a uniformity and stability to life. And sometimes I need that reassurance that life does have a pattern and direction.

The fact the Miller has taken not a single drawing or art course and yet produces such visually stimulating work and having so much of his work featured in museums and exhibitions is truly inspiring and admirable.


Dan Miller
Untitled, 2017, Embroidery and paint on fabric, 49 × 65 inches

Dan Miller
Untitled, 2012, Ink and acrylic on paper, 42.5 × 53.5 inches

Dan Miller
Untitled, 2016, Acrylic and ink on paper, 20.00 x 26.50 in

Louise Despont (Hannah T)

Louise Despont is an artist who works and lives out of New York, where she was born in 1983; and Bali, Indonesia. She possesses a bohemian flair that bleeds into her artwork. Ms. Despont chooses to create very large drawings on seperate sheets pulled from antique accounting ledgers, draftsman paper, and other gridded papers. With the help of her assistant, Nicole Wong, Ms. Despont uses colored pencils, graphite, and a hefty collection of architect/artist stencils to make her ideas a reality.

Stepwell Figures

She creates her intricate artwork with elements pulled from her infinite amount of inspiration images—old photographs, Buddhist medical charts, various textiles, patterns, beehives, architectural schematics, soundwaves, etc.
Many different elements may be chosen and woven into these designs, which are themselves very expressive and geometric, but also fluid and earthy.

Fort

More often than not, Ms. Despont finds herself working on her living room floor than at an artist’s table. She fully invests herself into every drawing, and into her work projects as a whole. According to Ms. Despont herself, her work is 90% research and 10% action. Oftentimes, she spends months just collecting images and making portfolios of every photo she finds. Because her pieces are so large, they have to be fitted into even larger frames; and because so much goes into their creation overall, it takes some time to get each drawing into a gallery, and at times she can do only one show a year.

Water Temple

But she never lets that stop her from brainstorming or innovating.
Oftentimes, the antique accounting ledger paper she draws abstract shapes, florals, or designs on contain old checks and balances from their past owners. By letting these numbers and words show through without bothering to change them or white them out, Ms. Despont makes the figures part of her work, which in itself looks antique.

Stepwell Garden

Ms. Despont has also stated that while her work appears very calm and naturalistic, she actually calculates every mark she makes. By using stencils, she creates designs that are so beautifully designed, one would never think they were made with a stencil at all. Ms. Despont’s base of operations is in the comfort of her home, and she often finds herself streched out on her bedroom  floor with her huge, sectioned layouts.

Torch Ginger With Elephant Ear

And she has said that she really prefers to work this way. “I find that being able to work at home—that I wake up in the morning, I have breakfast, and I start working—it’s a very smooth transition to a quieter, more centered place.”
Also, because Ms. Despont creates all of her drawings using relatively inexpensive materials, she does not have to wait until she has large amounts of money or has recieved donations to create the pictures, which she just likes to “just let happen.”

Louise Despont, colored pencil and graphite on antique  ledger book pages, 18x23 inches
Heliconia Mask

All of her drawings started with simple marks that turned into something more.
“Those marks contain the seed of the drawing,” she commented in Louise Despont Draws Deep. This is something that is true of virtually any drawing, or any work of art.
And in Louise Despont’s case, it is the foundation of her media.

Garden Fence