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Collage of five diverse artworks from the Hammer Museum Collections side by side. From left to right: 1) Contemporary painting of two embracing figures with surreal elements. 2) Post-impressionist style painting of trees with vibrant blues and greens. 3) Black and white illustration of a face with intricate patterns. 4) Japanese woodblock print style image of a figure in a checkered robe. 5) Photograph of a couple dancing, the woman in a black dress and the man in white

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Digital Archive Take It or Leave It: Institution, Image, Ideology
Art John Miller, Untitled
Untitled, by John Miller, 1990

John Miller, Artist
Untitled , 1990

Medium
Styrofoam, found objects, plaster, papier-mâché, acrylic on Masonite
Dimensions
60 x 48 x 14 in. (152.4 x 121.9 x 35.6 cm)
Credit Line
Courtesy of the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. Image courtesy of the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts

John Miller is perhaps most recognized for a series of brown relief paintings that he began to make in the mid-1980s. Built up from a thick impasto, many of these paintings are a chocolaty, fecal mess of inchoate mounds, formed from objects buried just below the surface. In this untitled relief, chunks, wedges, and balls adhere like growths to the canvas. Miller used the thickened paint to form intentional, self-conscious brushstrokes that simultaneously enact and function as a caricature for the creative process in allegories of neo-expressionism.