NICOLE MILLER

Nicole Miller is an artist who works primarily with video and installation to examine the intricate interplay of race, gender, culture, and personal history, while challenging conventional binary notions of contemporary identity. She often uses portraiture as a device to focus on the way that we use storytelling to frame identity. Her recent work has explored ideas of the celebrity as an image, and embodiment as an artistic practice.

Michael in White is a bronze cast of Michael Jackson’s kneeling figure painted in white, derived from a fragmented 1987 mold of the late musician’s body. Reassembled by Miller, the fractured body and placement on top of a pedestal creates a tension between celebration and denigration. The resulting sculpture is a meditation on celebrity and image: the object-hood of the performer, the dehumanizing effects of the public gaze, the celebrity as a host for contemporary projections, and the implications that this kind of image-making has on all levels of society.