Catalog Essay for "New Paintings", November 7 - December 29, 2007

by CK Wolfson, 2007

Hers is a vision of the world in a grain of sand; a moment in thenatural world in which the viewer blinks and the painter captures movement, mood, and feeling in such crafted, stop-action, organic detail as to make the ordinary, sublime. 

Puddles on a New York City street, ripples in pond on Martha’sVineyard, the fluid reflection of lights on wet pavement are translated by Judith Miller into glistening texture and immediacy. The air has the illusion of aroma and temperature, and otherwise mute scenes find their melodies. Stroke by patient stroke, the viewer is enveloped in Miller’s illuminated details. 

It is an ironic confluence: realism elevated to abstraction; emotion conjured with painstaking, mathematical precision. Miller begins by photographing carefully chosen subjects from which ink and colored pencil drawings are created. The canvases are then divided into proportionately scaled grids on which her drawings are rendered, then transformed by building a thin and thick surface with meticulously applied layers of paint. At each point the image evolves, achieves a uniquely personal dimension, and ultimately, transcends its subject. Seemingly random moments become heroic. It is a gift of visual awareness. 

CK Wolfson, editor, art reviewer

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