SOWA Artist
In her small but bright SoWa studio, Katherine Downey Miller stands next to life-size canvases she painted in vibrant oranges and reds, inspired by the traumatizing wildfires recently on vivid display on screens all over the world. “The images of these fires are very beautiful,” she says, “even though the fires are horrific.”
Raised in the Boston area, with a BS in painting from Skidmore College and an MFA from the The School of Visual Arts’ “Illustration as Visual Essay” Program, Miller has taught painting and drawing at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado and at the Studio Arts College International in Florence, Italy. She describes herself as a painter of nature as opposed to landscapes, and as an observer of the effect of weather patterns and of light traveling through the surface of water as seen from below. Her art highlights environmental themes, as reflected in a 2019 solo exhibit of smaller works about the ocean, “Liquid and Lumino-sity.” She uses gold and other metallic colors to harness the shimmering quality that nature’s elemental forces bring to the mutable surfaces of water. Her paintings hover between distinguishable forms and textured abstractions.
Growing up in New England and observing the changes that the seasons bring to the world here, Miller translates what she sees and feels onto the canvas by means of layered paints, brush strokes interspersed by dripping acrylic, and oil colors straight from a can. The varied departure points of these techniques and materials infuse her work with expression. “The landscape is the old story,” she says. “The new is the feeling of light and color, or the memory of a feeling, which is a different visual narration.”
The mystery of nature is also expressed in the more figurative art Miller practices, namely custom portraits of man’s and woman’s best friend, our beloved dogs. A devoted animal lover herself, Miller looks to capture and reflect her canine subject’s heart and soul.
Katherine Downey Miller can be reached at info@katherinedmiller.com, or at 781.405.5050.