Benrimon Contemporary is pleased to present Nachume Miller vs. Danny Miller, a father and son exhibition exploring the patriarchal influence and subsequent modernization of Nachume Miller’s legacy through his son, Danny. Born in Germany in 1949, Nachume Miller immigrated to New York to study at the School of Visual Arts, where he would later become a professor of painting and drawing. He was quickly identified as a star on the rise and at the age of 29, was included in the Guggenheim Museum’s “Young American Artists,” Exxon Nat... Read more

Benrimon Contemporary is pleased to present Nachume Miller vs. Danny Miller, a father and son exhibition exploring the patriarchal influence and subsequent modernization of Nachume Miller’s legacy through his son, Danny.

Born in Germany in 1949, Nachume Miller immigrated to New York to study at the School of Visual Arts, where he would later become a professor of painting and drawing. He was quickly identified as a star on the rise and at the age of 29, was included in the Guggenheim Museum’s “Young American Artists,” Exxon National Exhibition. A decade later he was granted a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art, where his work is now part of the permanent collection. Though his career was cut short by his untimely death in 1998, Nachume exhibited at some of the most prominent galleries in New York and around the world.

Nachume’s early works where figures morph and twist within bizarre dreamlike landscapes are reminiscent of the masters such as Hieronymus Bosch, Salvador Dalí, and Francisco Goya. He then progressed to purely abstract painting where he combined a masterful use of color and line.

Nachume’s interests lie not only in the human condition but also in the mind’s complex networks of thought and emotion. His interests are expressed in his Cyberscape series of densely clustered scribbles and lines upon a brilliant wash of color. These abstractions are not only an exercise of the artist’s mind but they also present a unique realm of perception and possibility. In Nachume’s final Sun/Illusion series, the artist concentrated on abstracting even further away from narrative and form. These works, with an even more intense focus on color, resemble luminous fractures of light, evoking an almost ethereal atmosphere of thought and reflection.

Danny grew up in his father’s studio learning the fundamental techniques of paintings and drawing. With his father’s influence, he went on to study Painting at UCLA and received his BFA in 2004. The body of work that Danny soon developed was his translation of his father’s structural composition meshed with his own interests in graphic design, geometry, and vintage books and magazines.

Like his late father, Danny is interested in the human mind yet focuses on exploring the figurative subconscious, rather than the purely abstract. He is mainly taken with the mind’s ability to freely piece together memories and images while asleep. Pulling from popular imagery, Danny layers and juxtaposes recognizable images to create this uncontrollable subconscious atmosphere. He compliments this surrealist subject matter with stylistic influence from Japanese woodblock artists, playing with negative space and geometric lines. Danny’s paintings resemble a mental collage, a snapshot of a dreaming subconscious mind at play.

Miller vs. Miller is a visual exploration of Nachume Miller’s legacy, not only as a painter but as a mentor and father. It captures how Danny has built upon this influence to branch out, and create his own unique style.