darren lee (dee) miller

Beeler Gallery, Columbus, OH
September - October 2022

1,000 Miles Per Hour – the speed of earth's rotation at the equator – showcases the effects of perspective through photography and other contemporary practices. Tim Rietenbach and I curated the exhibition as part of the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial, a month-long celebration of lens-based art that unites artists, curators, and educators from around the world. It was on display in the Beeler Gallery at Columbus College of Art & Design from September 15 – October 28, 2022.

This exhibition includes works by contemporary artists whose practices demonstrate distinct approaches to the art of recording, and which broaden the indexical and poetic deployments of contemporary creative practices. The featured artists are James Turrell; Stephanie Syjuco; Dawit L. Petros; Lisa Jarrett; David Bowen; Hans Klompen with Orlando Combita- Heredia, Jeremy Naredo, and Sam Bolton for Ohio State University’s Acarology Collection; CCAD Alumnus Chad Hunt; Ben Kinsley with Robin Hewlett; and Roger Beebe. All images on this page are courtesy of Beeler Gallery.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW / DOWNLOAD THE EXHIBITION CATALOG (PDF).

Blockfort Gallery, Columbus, OH
October - November 2020

This exhibition was originally scheduled to be part of the fifth FotoFocus 2020 Biennial. We are grateful that FotoFocus has generously pledged its financial support to make this show possible even though the biennial has been canceled due to the pandemic. This year’s theme, Exploring Light and Its Contrasts, considers the implicit signification of the word, “light.” According to Kevin Moore, FotoFocus Artistic Director and Curator, “Light implies a force of good, and it conjures hope, clarity, and rational thought.” “Flickering” evokes a flashing light, and indicates a warning sign as we exit the Holocene, the geological epoch of climate stability that gave rise to agriculture, civilizations, and our global economy.

The three artists in this exhibition — Allison Maria Rodriguez, Barry Underwood, and Kathryn Vajda — contemplate our entry into the Anthropocene, an era when human activity is the dominant influence on the environment. Climate change is a social justice issue. Accelerating sea level rise and species extinctions, persistent droughts and flooding, food scarcity, lead poisoning -- and other environmental catastrophes that disproportionately impact people of color, and the poor, mostly non-white inhabitants of the “global south” -- are essential considerations in a time of social injustice, healthcare insecurities, and rising political discord.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE UNABRIDGED ARTIST INTERVIEWS

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CLICK HERE TO VIEW / DOWNLOAD THE EXHIBITION CATALOG (PDF).

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
January - March 2018

In this exhibition, we seek to expand the semantic geography of the word “trade,” to move it beyond male sexuality and sex acts specifically, and to re-conceive the word within the broader realm of queer art theory to explore non-normative identities, power play, desire, and the allure of risky assignations. Many of the invited artists have crafted new works for this show using time-honored methods to make ceramic sculptures and functional wares that are anything but traditional. The artists are Mark Burns, Jeremy Brooks, Wesley Harvey, Ryan Wilson Kelly, Kathy King, Howard Kottler, Matt Nolen, Anne Drew Potter, Anthony Sonnenberg, Caitlin Rose Sweet, H.M. Thompson, and Triesch Voelker. CLICK HERE TO VIEW / DOWNLOAD THE EXHIBITION CATALOG PDF.

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
October - November 2017

Helen Zughaib was born in Beirut, Lebanon, living mostly in the Middle East and Europe before coming to the United States to study art Helen currently lives and works in Washington, DC. The artist says,

“I feel that my background in the Middle East allows me to approach the experiences I have in America in a unique way, remaining an observer of both the Arab and American cultures. I believe that the arts are one of the most important tools we have to help shape and foster dialogue and positive ideas between the Middle East and the United States. I hope through my work to encourage dialogue and bring understanding and acceptance between the people of the Arab world and the United States, especially since 9/11, our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the more recent revolutions and crises across the Arab world.”

Helen‘s work has been widely exhibited in galleries and museums in the United States, Europe and Lebanon, and included in many private and public collections, including the White House, World Bank, Library of Congress, US Consulate General, Vancouver, Canada, American Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, the Arab American National Museum in, Michigan, and the DC Art Bank collection.

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
September 2017

This annual Labor Day weekend event honors art as a process of sustained work, and features about a dozen artists making art on site with the public invited to observe (and participate if the artist so desires). This year’s artists, all alumni of Allegheny College, are Jack Conant ’12, Matt Freeland ’12, Paula Frisch ’11, Marc Kreidler ’11, Cynthia Lee ’12, Allison Whitney ’01, Nicholena Moon ’12, Jacqui Reynolds ’12, Jude Shingle ’08, M.G. Singer and Heather Fish ’15, Andrew Twigg ’99 and Eva Wylie ’01. 

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
January - February 2017

This exhibition offers a survey of government-sponsored efforts at persuasion in the twentieth century through the use of graphic art. Collaborations between government organizations and artists produced not simply advertisements, but what could be described as a form of “high art;” beautifully striking imagery combined with sharp, succinct messages for maximum emotional impact and creation of normative values and a common visual language. This exhibition was made possible, in part, with support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant for Collaborative Undergraduate Research in the Humanities at Allegheny College. CLICK HERE TO VIEW / DOWNLOAD THE EXHIBITION CATALOG PDF.

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
November 2016

Marking Place considers how we define, interrupt and interact with our geographic, political and cultural landscape. Invited artists Hilary Wang, Shreepad Joglekar and David Shannon-Lier consider the complexities of human-environment relationships and work to define these physical, social and spatial interactions. This exhibition invites the viewer to reflect upon our multifaceted relationships to place and environment as consumers, observers, and participants in its constant flux. This event is part of Allegheny College’s Year of Mindfulness. 

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
September 2016

This annual art event features about a dozen artists making art on site with the public invited to observe (and participate if the artist so desires). This year’s artists will consider how failure is essential for learning, personal and professional growth, and why failing (and the vulnerability it requires) is usually a feature of success. The artists are Heather Renee Brand, Max Collins, Kristen 30, Hannah Epstein, Fotini Galanes, Trevor King, Kathryn Lien, Darren Lee Miller, Steve Prince, Byron Rich, Stacey Robinson, and Ian F. Thomas. This event is part of Allegheny College’s Year of Mindfulness. 

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
September 2015

This annual art event features about a dozen artists making art on site with the public invited to observe (and participate if the artist so desires). This year’s invited artists will consider themes of place and home. The artists are Justus Cotterill, Norman Cramer, Nima Dehghani, David Karl Leighty, Caldwell Linker, Alicia Marvan, Steve Prince, Byron Rich, Ian F. Thomas, and M. G. Singer with Darren Lee Miller. The exhibition and related events are part of the Year of Meadville.

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
January - March 2015

This exhibition examines constructions of racial identity to complicate popular rhetoric around race. The artworks interrogate oversimplifying binaries, and destabilize the often unexamined position of “whiteness.” The artists deploy visual texts in the service of asking uncomfortable questions, reflecting upon identity, and asking the viewer to consider his/her own role in building, enabling, or perpetuating stereotypes. Invited artists are Sandra Brewster, Steve Cole, Andrea Chung, Brendan Fernandes, Vanessa German, Kenyatta Hinkle, Ayanah Moor, James Seward, and  Alisha Wormsley.

The idea for this exhibition came from the National Public Radio series “Code Switch,” launched in April 2013 to explore “frontiers of race, culture and ethnicity.” Some of the earliest stories focused on code switching, the practice of literally changing the grammar, syntax, and style of delivery of one’s speech in order to more appropriately match the expectations of a situation or peer group. The practice raises questions about authenticity, (self)acceptance, assimilation, and cultural legacies. In other words, code switching points to the performative, fluid nature of identity construction. This exhibition explores the ways in which afro-diasporic, Native-American, Asian/Pacific, and Latino identities contend to construct themselves in relation to a white identity so normative and privileged that it largely remains unnamed. CLICK HERE TO VIEW / DOWNLOAD EXHIBITION CATALOG PDF.

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
October 2014

Hand paper-making is the language of Combat Paper. By working in communities directly affected by warfare and using the uniforms and artifacts from their experiences, a transformation occurs and our collective language is born. Artist Nathan Lewis will lead veterans and other workshop participants in a week-long paper-making and bookmaking workshop. Participants will reclaim their uniforms — which will be cut up, beaten into a pulp, and formed into sheets of paper — to collaboratively create works of art which will be shown in conjunction with artworks made by national and international artists on sheets of combat paper. Invited artists are Laura Blacklow, Kimberly Dummons, Helen Frederick, Amara Geffen, Sergio Gomez, Jerushia Graham, Cheryl Hatch, Cheryl Hayes, Bruce Herman, Augustus Jenkins, Brian Kreydatus, Peter Madden, Darren Lee Miller, Steve Prince, George Roland, Richard Sayer, Richard Schindler, George Smith, Andrew Stanbridge, Lynn Sures, Ian F. Thomas, and Donald Wilson.

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
September 2014

This annual art event features about a dozen artists making art on site with the public invited to observe (and participate if the artist so desires). This year’s invited artists will consider themes of loss and change. The artists are Rafael Abreu-Canedo, John Bavaro, Julia Betts, Heather Renee Brand, John Garrett, Darren Lee Miller with Miriam Patterson, Lucia Nhamo, Steve Prince, Byron Rich, Ian F. Thomas, and Jeff Willis.

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
November 2013

This exhibition showcases works that use interactive digital tools prominently as part of their inception, process, and display. All the artworks in the show deploy various technologies to prompt simultaneous interactions that create a participatory experience. In many cases, there is an instantaneity to the pieces that affords the gallery viewer an interaction in which s/he can immediately observe the effects of his or her presence in real time. In other words, the very presence of the viewer may affect a change in the piece. While the technology itself is important, the central themes are sharing the creative process with the viewer, and creating structures where viewers are changing the form or function of the piece (and therefore essential to its creation). Artists include Pippin Barr, Jeremy Boyle, Molleindustria (Paolo Pedercini), Jessica Thompson, George Roland, and Erik Sanner.

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
September 2013

This annual art event features about a dozen artists making art on site with the public invited to observe (and participate if the artist so desires). This year’s invited artists use elements of performance in their artworks, using their own bodies, the bodies of others, and systematized actions to create works of art. The artists are Edith Abeyta, Matthew Conboy, Casey Droege, Corey Escoto, Andrea Sherrill Evans, April Flanders, Daniel Luchman, Patrick Schmidt, Becky Slemmons, Kirk Amaral Snow, Garett Yahn, and Jennifer Yorke. 

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
January - March 2013

Joe Meiser investigates the conflicting narratives about mortality offered by science, philosophy and religion. He also looks at how contemporary technologies have changed the ways we think about death. The problem of mortality is fundamentally the same today as it was for the first humans 200,000 years ago, but because of the particulars of our contemporary situation, humans now think differently about death. This exhibition is part of the Year of Transforming Education at Allegheny College, and was shown concurrently with the work of Canadian artist Leigh-Ann Pahapill, a companion exhibition entitled, Likewise, as technical experts, but not (at all) by way of culture, curated by Jonathan Walz, Ph.D.

Pahapill questions how we apprehend our world and investigates the frameworks that shape how we come to know things. For this site-specific installation, which was adapted from its first iteration at the Cornell Fine Arts Museum, the artist has created replicas of several props designed by Austrian-German scenographer Caspar Neher and used in four of Bertolt Brecht’s theatrical productions from 1926–1962. As is typical in Pahapill’s work, the boundaries between the installed objects and the gallery space are blurred in a pattern of response and articulation between sculpture and architecture.  Her work engages the architecture of the gallery to understand how we conceive our worlds, bringing fragments, events, and ideas into tenable meaning.  In Pahapill’s work, the objects on view grow to include the gallery, the encounter with the objects themselves, and the process of cognition.  The artist asks us to reflect upon the degree to which predetermined ideas, concepts, and ways of framing are already embedded in acts of looking.

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
October - November 2012

Books have always been used for disseminating information and conducting education, but artists have been creating (and re-creating) books as art objects for more than a century. The artist’s book is a hybrid form that keeps pace with contemporary techniques and materials while also keeping traditional craft alive. Featured artists include Brian Dettmer, John Cage, Jenny Holzer, Alfredo Jaar, Clarissa Sligh, Kara Walker, Daniel Embree, and many others. A retrospective of serigraphic prints by Roy Ahlgren from Allegheny College’s collection was shown at the same time. The exhibitions were part of the Year of Transforming Education at Allegheny College.

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
September 2012

This annual art event features about a dozen artists making art on site with the public invited to observe (and participate if the artist so desires). This year’s artists are Kenneth Batista (Pittsburgh) John Bavaro (Erie), Ian Finch (Pittsburgh), Valerie Gilman (Venango), Renee Ickes (Pittsburgh) Mark Keffer (Cleveland), Anna Kell (Lewisburg), Cara Lynn Kleid (Pittsburgh), Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann (Washington, D.C.), Suzanne Proulx (Erie), Eric Stern (Pittsburgh), and other collaborative projects. This exhibition is part of the Year of Transforming Education at Allegheny College.

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
January - March 2012

Bodies are seen, experienced, and represented through a nexus of powerful cultural taboos designed to regulate pleasure. This exhibition features artworks by Heyd Fontenot (Dallas, TX), Erin Finley (Toronto, ON), and Keira Sunshine Norton (Bloomington, IN) that locate power in the sensual. “The Figure Untamed” is an exhibition of provocative works by three artists whose focus is the human form. Bodies are seen, experienced and represented through a nexus of powerful cultural taboos designed to regulate pleasure. Even in our contemporary western experience, ideas about decorum work to create unspoken myths and fantasies around bodies as loci of desire. What this exhibition explores instead are artworks that locate power in pleasure, celebrate sensuality of form and show the human figure without the usual controlling devices of modesty, shame and fear.

Erin Finley creates outrageous imagery with meticulous line work to bring the viewer into her compulsive, violent, gratifying dream-world, where pin-up girls unabashedly spread their legs to reveal that they are, in fact, menstruating, where innocent-looking nymphs torture hooded men, and where fresh-faced co-eds assault us with their casual disregard for themselves and others. Finley is influenced as much by Tarantino and Disney as by historical Dutch still-life painting and contemporary performance art. Each one of her discomfiting images implies multiple non-linear narratives and offers viewers an ambivalent, unsettling experience.

Heyd Fontenot jokingly claims to be “creat[ing] a little rest area on the highway of controlling, judgemental, porn-consuming, right-wing perversion.” Using paint on panel and paper, Fontenot strives to allow people to approach the shame and dissatisfaction they feel about their own bodies with empathy, kindness and patience. The nude figures in his paintings offer seduction and eroticism in their power. Their focused stares reject objectification and suggest that our secrets are not to be found in our pants but in our eyes.

Keira Sunshine Norton draws upon her experience as a sex worker when making her strange anthropomorphic ceramic sculptures. The works playfully encourage us to enjoy our animal natures, while also warning us of the Siren’s song. Inasmuch as the pieces evoke folk tales, they also suggest contemporary narratives about desire in which we are beset with confusion regarding how — or if — we might inhabit traditional roles. CLICK HERE TO VIEW / DOWNLOAD THE FIGURE UNTAMED EXHIBITION CATALOG PDF.

This was shown concurrently with the exhibition curated by Patricia Ulbrich, In Sisterhood: the Women’s Movement in Pittsburgh, which is seen at the end of this photo album. CLICK HERE TO VIEW / DOWNLOAD THE IN SISTERHOOD EXHIBITION CATALOG PDF.

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
September 2011

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO. This annual art event features a dozen artists making art on site with the public invited to observe (and participate if the artist so desires). This year’s artists are Shaila Christofferson (Chicago), Pedar Dalthorp (Anchorage, AK), Matt Forrest (Pittsburgh, PA), Amara Geffen (Vernon, PA), n. sean glover (Pittsburgh and Boston), Heather Hertel (Slippery Rock, PA), Michelle Illuminato (Alfred, NY), Jeremy LeClair (Portsmouth, NH), Joe Meiser (Lewisburg, PA), Anna Mikolay (Pittsburgh, PA), Elizabeth Mooney (Pittsburgh and Boston), and Allegheny alumnus Alex Mead ’01 (Portsmouth, NH). CLICK HERE TO VIEW / DOWNLOAD THE EXHIBITION CATALOG PDF.

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center, New York, NY
February - March 2011

The premise of this project was to coordinate a Queer Caucus members exhibition comprised of work that challenges the narrow interpretations and representations of queer identity. We selected artists who are connected by their beliefs that contemporary image-making is a means to push the boundaries of art practice as it relates to "queerness." It was inspiring to see so many artists combine personal vision with an impressive grasp of materials. The eclectic nature of our selection exemplifies the vitality and the freedom of the community in which the work is being made. The work illustrates that the most interesting pieces are grounded in lived experience: conveying a sense of place, where the work was made, and who made it. We'd like to thank the artists whose work we had the privilege of being introduced to via the review process. CLICK HERE TO VIEW/DOWNLOAD THE EXHIBITION GUIDE PDF, which contains the full list of participating artists.

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
January - March 2011

An exhibition exploring global citizenship through portrayals of people dispersed from their homelands.

The opening presentation was followed by a free public concert by Ise Lyfe, a nationally known spoken word artist, educator and emcee. Recently appointed commissioner of arts and cultural affairs for the city of Oakland, Calif., Lyfe has performed on Russell Simmons’ “Def Poetry Jam” on HBO and at more than 60 colleges and universities around the world. His concert was part of Allegheny’s Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium.

“Diasporas and Dreams,” featured works by a variety of artists: Bonnie Donohue, a Boston-based multimedia artist who creates photographic panoramas of abandoned military installations in Vieques, Puerto Rico, to recount the displacement of fishermen and farmers; Rebecca Heyl, an artist and human rights activist based in Boston and Perugia, Italy, who has conducted photographic interviews with Jews and Muslims living on both sides of a separation barrier being constructed by Israel; Andrew Ellis Johnson, a Pittsburgh-based artist whose work explores the continued construction of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories; Vasia Markides, a Cypriot-American filmmaker whose 2008 documentary, “Hidden in the Sand,” chronicles the story of Famagusta, Cyprus, a city whose Greek Cypriot population evacuated in 1974 due to an invasion by the Turkish army; and Susanne Slavick, a Pittsburgh-based artist who creates paintings and other works by transforming photographs of wreckage created by American military actions in the Middle East.

The exhibition was part of Allegheny College’s Year of Global Citizenship, a series of events and activities aimed at enhancing the campus and community’s understanding of what it means to be a citizen in an increasingly globalized world.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW / DOWNLOAD EXHIBITION CATALOG PDF.

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
November 2010

A national invitational exhibition of works by more than 13 contemporary and historical artists. “Winter’s Edge” explores how the forces of cold, ice and snow shape landscapes and cultural identities in Canada and the northern tier of the United States of America. Works include a selection of influential pre-1940 landscape paintings from the collection of Allegheny College alumnus, Tom Clark, class of ’62, stereo-views from the Johnson-Shaw Stereoscopic Museum in Meadville, Inuit drawings and artifacts from the Mercer County Historical Society (Mercer, Pa.), recent and historical works from the Erie Art Museum (Erie, Pa.) and contemporary paintings from emerging American artists Joshua Highter (Vermont), Margie Guyot (Michigan) and James Swanson (Illinois).

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
September 2010

This annual art event features about a dozen artists making art on site with the public invited to observe (and participate if the artist so desires). This year’s artists are Ashley Pixelle Andrews (Pittsburgh), Cathie Bleck (Cleveland, OH), Berry Breen and Darren Miller (Pittsburgh and Meadville), Claudia Giannini (Pittsburgh), Robert Hernandez (Brooklyn, NY), Allison Whitney (Pittsburgh), Cara Lynn Kleid (Pittsburgh), Matt Martin (Edinboro), Bill Rodgers (Pittsburgh), Ann Tarantino (State College), Shaun Slifer and Mary Tremonte (Pittsburgh).

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
January - February 2010

An international invitational exhibition with diversity scholar-in-residence Zanele Muholi. The works in this exhibition deal frankly with human sexuality.

Highlights include Muholi’s immersive installation “Insila Yomuntu” in the Bowman Gallery. The South African artist was on the Allegheny campus for more than a week to speak about her work with students, community members and gallery visitors.

“Nude No. 5, Eleanor Dubinsky and Melanie Marr,” an experimental video piece by New York artist Mary Ellen Strom, was housed in the Megahan Gallery. THINK AGAIN, a Los Angeles-based artist collaborative, presented two large projections in the Vukovich Center for Communication Arts: “Mind Control” and “Queer Youth Manifesto.” The images were visible every evening during the exhibition through the building’s wall of windows.

The show also included a wide variety of drawings, paintings, photographs, videos and sculptural works by Melissa Boyajian, Ria Brodell, Jacinta Bunnell, Andrea Chung, Jess Dugan, Jesse Jagtiani, Nahna Kim, Jacob Kincheloe, Cobi Moules, Jesse Finley Reed, Jeannie Simms, Colleen Toledano and Yasumasa Morimura.

“In Between” is curated by three Allegheny faculty members: Emily Yochim, assistant professor of communication arts; Vika Gardner, assistant professor of religious studies; and Darren Lee Miller, gallery director and assistant professor of art.

“The artists featured in ‘In Between’ urge us to question and challenge lines of identity,” said Miller. “Though each of the artists works toward different specific ends, what unites them is a refusal to conform to banal and limiting myths about prevailing systems of political representation, discourse and their categorized places within those systems.”

CLICK HERE TO VIEW / DOWNLOAD THE EXHIBITION CATALOG PDF.

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
November 2009

The exhibition, which is part of Allegheny’s Year of Social Change, a series of activities, workshops and events aimed at inspiring the campus and community to seek a more just and equitable world. The works encourage individuals to consider how they are forming their world – for better and worse – and how the ideas they shape affect their lived experiences. The exhibit examines the ethical implications of changes that people make to the world as well as the futures they imagine for themselves and the environment.

Justin Shull’s interactive “Porta Hedge” – a mobile, artificial hedge that accommodates people in its interior mobile observation lab – will be installed on the Gator Quad, just outside the main gallery entrance. “Ground Truthing,” a video installation by California artist Krista Caballero, will be housed inside the Megahan Gallery.

The show also will include photographs by Curtis Hamilton, Josh Winer, Todd Forsgren and Mark LaRosa, drawings by Vesselina Traptcheva, and a sculptural environment created on-site by Thomas J. Stevenson. In addition, the exhibit will feature an interactive agricultural installation by Leah Gauthier, an enclosure for the study of hermit crabs’ socioeconomic behavior by Roberto Loring, anthropomorphic organic sculptures by Erie artist Suzanne Proulx, and many student pieces made in response to the works on display.

Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
September 2009

This annual art event features about a dozen artists making art on site with the public invited to observe (and participate if the artist so desires). This year’s artists are Julie Lohnes, Brooklyn, N.Y., John Alexander of Edinboro, PA, Cheryl Capezzuti of Pittsburgh, Dan Franke of Pittsburgh, PA, Faith Johnson of Boston, Ryan Wilson Kelly of Philadelphia, PA, Carin Mincemoyer of Pittsburgh, PA, Lorri Ott of Medina, OH, the Rev. Daisher Rocket of Greensburg, PA, and Allegheny College alumni Eva Wylie and Colleen Toledano, both of Philadelphia.

CLICK HERE TO READ A REVIEW OF THIS EXHIBITION FROM THE MEADVILLE TRIBUNE.