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2006-2010 Master of Fine Arts Photography, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN
2001-2006 Bachelor of Fine Arts Photography, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN
2010
National Security VS. Personal Freedom, (ACLU) American Civil Liberties Union, Corporate Decay Series Featured in National Film Advertising Campaign, Newark, NJ
Corporate Decay, Solo Exhibition, Energy Gallery, 552 S. Main, Memphis, TN
23rd Annual McNeese Works on Paper Exhibition, Juror Peter Frank, Abercrombie Gallery, Lake Charles, LA
27th Annual Juried Art Exhibition, Jurors Robert J. Sanchez and Emiko René Lewis-Sanchez, Art Museum of the University of Memphis, Memphis, TN
On Location: Memphis International Film Festival, Fundraiser Art Auction,
Marshall Arts, 639 Marshall Ave
Memphis, TN
Revolutionary Runway, Group Exhibition, Hollywood Disco, Memphis, TN
The Secret Signs and Symbols of Freephotography, Global Online Solo Exhibition
The Sex Issue, Group Exhibition, Projekt30, New York, NY
Zoogalocka’s Palace, Solo Exhibition, Marshall Arts Billboard Installation, Memphis, TN
Energy Fortress of Solitary Meditation, M.F.A. Thesis, Art Lab, Art Museum of University of Memphis, TN
2009
Aloha from Hawaii: 5 Stations of a Vietnam Vet, Jack Robinson Gallery, Memphis, TN
Phantasmagoria, Concept Gallery, Memphis, TN
Selected Works of Jason Miller, AK-47 Gallery, University of Memphis South Campus, TN
Opera Memphis Gala, Group Exhibition, Memphis, TN
Group Exhibition, Odessa Gallery, Memphis, TN
26th Annual Juried Art Exhibition, Juror Lois Renner, Art Museum of University of Memphis
Solo Exhibition, New Work by SOULRECORDER, Brinkley Plaza, Memphis TN
2008
51st Annual Delta Exhibition, Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR
Group Exhibition, Memphis Theological Seminary, Memphis, TN
Donation Exhibition, WKNO, Memphis, TN
Charles Powell Community Photography Project, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN
Group Exhibition, Lulalyn Gallery, Memphis, TN
25th Annual Juried Art Exhibition, Juror Chakaia Booker, AMUM, Memphis, TN
Hooks Bros. Image Restoration Exhibition, Jones Hall Gallery, University of Memphis, TN (In collaboration with Dr. Ernestine Jenkins)
2007
Memphis River Arts Fest Juried Exhibition, Memphis Historic Train Station, TN
24th Annual Juried Art Exhibition, Juror Gail Roberts, AMUM, Memphis, TN
Group Exhibition, Ravine Restaurant, Oxford, MS
2006
23rd Annual Juried Art Exhibition, Juror Beauvais Lyons, AMUM, Memphis, TN
Highly Favored Contemporary Images of Virgin Mary, Juror Fr. Terrence E. Dempsey Juried 2 Year Traveling Exhibition:
2005
22nd Annual Juried Art Exhibition, Juror Charles Reeve, AMUM, Memphis, TN
2004
Visions From a Dairy Cooler, Solo Exhibition, Gallery 203, University of Memphis, TN
21st Annual Juried Art Exhibition, Juror Dr. Ellen “Nan” Plummer, AMUM, Memphis, TN
2003
20th Annual Juried Art Exhibition, Juror Peter Schjedahl, AMUM, Memphis, TN
2009 African Americans in Memphis with Author Dr.
Earnestine Lovelle Jenkins
2009 Cover-Up, Richard Alexander Lou, Memphis, TN
2010 Best of Photography Award, 27th Annual Juried Art Exhibition,
Jurors Robert J. Sanchez and Emiko René Lewis-Sanchez,
Art Museum of the University of Memphis, Memphis, TN
2008 Best of Photography Award, 25th Annual Juried Art Exhibition,
Juror Chakaia Booker, Art Museum of the University of Memphis,
Memphis, TN
2008 Finalist (Top 200 of 4000), 28thAnnual Photographer’s Forum,
College Photography Contest, International
2004 Image Purchase Award by William Thomas Thompson
2007 – 2010 Magna Cum Laude, National Honor Society
2007 – 2010 Instructor of Record
Intro To Black and White Photography,
Color Digital Photography, Intro to Photoshop / Lightroom
The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN
Apple Computer
Adobe Photoshop
Epson Large Format Printer / Color Management
Adobe Dreamweaver
Adobe Lightroom
Power Point
Key Note
Pages
Apple Aperture
Final Cut Pro
Apple iMovie
Silver Process Black and White Darkroom
Large Format 4 X 5 View Camera
C-41 Color Processor
Canon Digital SLR Camera System
Artist’s Bio
Jason Miller is a native of Memphis, TN where he obtained his Master of Fine Arts from The University of Memphis. Miller currently works predominantly in large format digital imagery that is often accompanied by unique soundtracks that he also makes. Miller makes everything from start to finish and never uses mediated images or pre-made material. He is an artist that creates using many different mediums simultaneously. For instance, Miller sings and creates phonetically derived poetry while at the same time building philosophically and visually complex murals using hundreds of single photographs that he makes throughout his daily life. In Miller’s own words, “Each photograph is a word and when combined the photographs form visual sentences. “
Miller is foremost known as a poet that uses both words and images to speak his spiritual voice. He manifests his ideologies and emotions in many different mediums, which include both photographic and lyrical formats. He travels domestically within the U.S. to uniquely sacred places ranging from the Smokey Mountains to Mesa Verde, as well as internationally to diverse locations including Costa Rica, Prague, Vienna, Paris, Bruges, and Greece. Miller’s intent is always to make new discoveries while gathering experimental images and philosophical material. In addition, to collecting personal images through his photography, Miller further enhances his conceptual growth by obtaining new cultural experiences throughout the course of his travels.
Nearly, all of Miller’s artwork is based on the idea of energy changing form in an arbitrary and surreal visual manner. This idea is best demonstrated in his Energy String and Energy Fortress Series, and is also particularly embodied in his written poetry. As a whole, spirituality and imagination is key to Jason Miller’s artwork.
Extended Artist’s Bio
Jason Miller was born in Memphis, TN the fall of 1979 in Saint Peter’s Orphanage, which coincidentally to Miller’s later work is known today as the Target House. Also, in the 70’s, Mike Oldfield created the timelessly surreal musical masterpiece Tubular Bells that nearly 20 years later would play a significant part in Miller’s creative growth. In 1997 towards the end of Jason’s time in the Memphis high school system he began to develop his love for photography and music. Tubular Bells was one of the first pieces of music that helped Miller tap into what he later coined as his sensitive ability. Miller felt something special in certain pieces of music that helped him find his own voice.
Miller himself states not to particularly cling to any one religion for inspiration, but rather says, “I feel there is a time and a place for all of us here in this earthly realm, and furthermore, I create from my heart, the part that can’t be sold or bought.” Miller’s sense of humor is out of the norm in the sense that he is seldom to never offended by works of art that may offend many based on their religious mental baggage. Miller doesn’t accept “pre-programming”, as he calls it, but rather he wants his work to make the viewer either cling to or question his or her personal belief system.
Jason Miller never uses mediated images, but rather he photographs all images he uses in the creation of his elaborate Energy Fortresses, as well as all his other image poems. Miller has a firm belief that art should be created anew from start to finish, and that using found images is against his way of working. He makes all photographs from images very personal to him that he either put together in studio to photograph or photographed while traveling abroad.
Corporate entities often find their way into Miller’s work. Jason proposes the question, “If the corporation is part of the world we live in and the tacky capitalistic presence is constantly before us mixed pervert-idly with even the clouds of the sky, then why not have a Target façade in the middle of an otherwise surreally abstract image space”? Two controversial editions Miller made were his Corporate Sex and UPC Sex series wherein products and the spirits of corporations copulated secretly within the sky. Video and photography also are closely connected in the performance driven approach Miller takes toward expressing his ideas and feelings about the world in which he lives. Jason Miller is an artist that has an ever-present foundation that is fortified with a strange vernacular and peculiar sense of humor. He is known to speak in tongues of a language all of his own design, he finds humorous that which is held as sacred by many, and he is not afraid to be himself despite criticism from the opinion of the ruling class, which Miller believes is implanted in the minds of the majority of middle class citizens of the world from conception to death.
Jason has used everything from an industrial soap dispenser insert, a torn out stove top, as well as many other pieces of debris as elements in his art. Miller combines the wrinkles in an elderly woman’s face in one image with a radiator pipe in another to create a new photographic organism. The imagination is the only rule maker in Jason’s mental arsenal, and in his own words, “Dreams are my only fences, with hinges to let them open and close.”
The first recorded work of art Jason Miller ever made was when, at the age of 6, he placed a plastic laundry basket upside down in a kitchen chair, followed by a clear glass basketball-sized lamp globe, with a 1970’s retro orange and yellow coaster at the tip-top for hair. Jason called this a robot and he placed a plate with a small portion of green peas in front of it. Jason Miller said, “when he eats the peas they go into his tummy and then over the fence to Taco Bell.” Miller still holds the memory of this creation as dear to his development as a dedicated conceptual artist.