HackelBury Fine Art - Garry Fabian Miller

“The pictures I make are of something as yet unseen, which may only exist on the paper surface, or subsequently may be found in the world. I am seeking a state of mind which lifts the spirit, gives strength and a moment of clarity.”

To find out about pricing and availability, or to arrange to view works in person please contact katestevens@hackelbury.co.uk

Born in 1957, contemporary British artist Garry Fabian Miller uses light as the raw material to make strikingly luminous and visceral images. From an early interest in the externals of place and nature, through a developing use of abstraction, Fabian Miller has sought to convey both the visual and metaphysical potential of his medium.

Fabian Miller has consistently challenged perceptions of contemporary photography within fine art, advancing to become one of its most progressive and important figures internationally. Since the mid 1980’s he has made photographs without a camera or negatives. Beginning with the discovery that translucent objects, such as leaves and petals, could act as colour transparencies, he went on to work with coloured glass vessels, pigmented water and oil, and cut-paper forms, placing these materials in contact with photographic paper, or at a distance, before allowing them to filter light or cast shadow patterns. The results are one of a kind, the record of unique light events captured on photographic paper.

The latest period of activity has marked a departure from the large–scale multiple panels of ‘Exposure’ and ‘Becoming Magma.’ These series dealt with an apocalyptic view of the raw energy and power of the earth and the sun, and man’s destructive relationship with the environment. The subsequent series can be seen as the building blocks towards the most recent work, starting with an intense period of daily activity in ‘Year I’ and ‘Year II’, and slowing down again in 2008. Here Miller considers the passage and sacredness of time, life being an accumulation of days, and through those days the accumulation of knowledge and wisdom through light. With longer exposures it became possible to pass in and out of the process, bringing the everyday into the work rather than existing in parallel to it. By taking the time to allow events to leave their mark on the paper, he discovered the importance of allowing a natural pace; to live as well as make, and to live an ordinary life, not rarefied or contrived. For both the artist and viewer these pictures can encompass and transcend everyday events, good and bad.

Abstract art, like music, can occupy a place outside and beyond language. When two colours meet, a place exists between them that is unique to each individual’s perception and experience. The colours pulse and resonate, encouraging us to engage viscerally rather than intellectually. The centre of each picture is particularly important, often creating a window, suggesting the idea of a way through to another place or way of seeing. The direct route of light from imagination to paper confounds the ‘idea’ of photography, in that these ‘places’ do not exist in any tangible form in the physical world.

The question common to this latest period is that if we accept that we may destroy ourselves, what will we experience at the end, at the point of crossover? For Fabian Miller, with the acceptance of destruction comes joy, a ‘blissed out’ state of being. With this in mind he has created places of rest, places in which to disappear, perhaps to that ‘other reality’ that we all search for. A physical presence that envelopes us, draws us in, surrounding us in fields of colour and light.

Selected Solo Exhbitions

2010 Garry Fabian Miller, HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK
2009 The Colours, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh UK. Time Passage, Abbot Hall, Kendall, UK
2008 Authentic Tidings of Invisible Things, An Tobar, Isle of Mull, UK . The Years, Nichido Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
Year One, Newlyn Art Gallery, Newlyn, UK
2007-8 Year One, New Art Centre, Salisbury, UK
2007 Garry Fabian Miller and Edmund de Waal, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
2006 Garry Fabian Miller, Goss Gallery, Dallas, USA
2005 Becoming Magma, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK. Real in the World, Mead Gallery, University of Warwick (touring)
Galerie Nichido, Paris, France. Exposure, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, UK. Rencontres d’Arles, International Festival of Photography, Arles, France
2004 Tracing Light, The Cleveland Museum of Arts, USA. Northern Suns Golden Storms, Nichido Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
Blue, Gold, Hamiltons, London, UK. Imagined, Portfolio Group, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
2003 Golden Storms, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, UK. Burning, Thought of a Night Sea, Valentina Moncada, Rome, Italy
2002 Flair, Tokyo Design Centre, Nichido Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan. Golden Burning, Night Cities, Purdy Hicks, London, UK
Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, UK
2001 Petworth Windows, Purdy Hicks, London, UK. Gallery Camera Work, Berlin, Germany
2000 Thought of a Night Sea, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, UK. Solar Eclipse, Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, USA
Six Chapel row Contemporary Art, Bath, UK
1999 Towards a Solar Eclipse, Tate, St Ives, UK. Tracing Light, Petworth House, Sussex, UK
1998 In the Shadow of the Sun, Hamiltons Gallery, London, UK. Sections of England: The Sea Horizon, Valentina Moncada, Rome, Italy
1997 De La War Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, UK. Sections of England: The Sea Horizon, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK
Sections of England: The Sea Horizon, Michael Hue Williams Fine Art, London, UK
1996 Elective Affinities, Michael Hue Williams Fine Art, London, UK. Of Sons and Angels, Museet for Fotokunst, Odense, Denmark
1995 Observances, The Pier Gallery, Orkney, UK
1994 Dawn, Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan. Natural Mechanics, Laurence Miller Gallery, New York, USA
1993 Home Land, Rebecca Hossack, St James’s, London, UK. Illumine, The Photographers Gallery, London (touring)
1991/3 The Gatherer, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, UK (touring) – Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance; Mead Gallery, University of Warwick, Cambridge Darkroom; Stills Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
1988 A Gathering in for the Healing, Natural History Museum, London, UK
1987 The Tree: A Return to Grace, Usher Gallery, Lincoln, UK
1986 Man from Hunter to Gatherer, Axiom, Cheltenham, UK [touring] - Impressions, York,
UK; Watershed, Bristol, UK
1985 Untitled Gallery, Sheffield, UK
1984 Festival Gallery, Bath, Usher Gallery, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK

Selected Group Exhibitions

2010 Shadow Catchers, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK.
Photography Now: vision, devotion, revelation, HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK
2009 Photography Now, HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK
2008 Photography Now, HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK
2007-8 The Long View: Garry Fabian Miller, Edmund de Waal, Michael Kenna; New Art Centre, Roche Court, UK.
2007 Photography Now, HackelBury Fine Art, London, UK
2006-7 Alchemy, Harewood House, Leeds (touring)
2005 Rencontres d'Arles, International Festival of Photography, Arles, France
2004 Lightfall, Philips Gallery, Taunton, UK. From Here to Eternity: Vija Celmins, Susan Derges, Richard Long, Garry Fabian Miller, James Turrell; Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
Seeing Salvation Now, North Light Gallery, Huddersfield, UK
2003 Optic Nerve, Abstract Colour Photographer, Wolsey Art Gallery, UK; Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich; Photofusion, London, UK
2002 Four Photographers, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
2001 At Sea, Tate Liverpool, UK. Planet Earth, City Art Gallery, Leicester, UK
2000 Unique Photographers, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, USA. Chorus of Light: Photographs from the Sir Elton John Collection, The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, USA. Breathless: Photography and Time, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
1999 Revelation, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London, UK. A Focus for Prayer, Six Chapel Row Contemporary Art, Bath, UK
1998 Several Exceptionally Good Recently Acquired Pictures XII, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, USA
1997 Several Exceptionally Good Recently Acquired Pictures XI, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, USA
1996-7 The Inner Eye, South Bank Centre, London, UK
1996 Under the Sun, Fraenkel Gallery, USA
1995 Heaven’s Embroidered Cloths, National Museum of Film, Photography & Television, Bradford, UK. 20 Modern British Photographers, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK. Context and Continuity, Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance, UK
1994 Illumine, The Verula Monastery, Tarrazona, Spain
1993 New Inhabitants, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, UK. An Undiscovered Country, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London, UK
1992-4 Special Collections, The Photographic Order from Pop to Now, International Centre of Photography, New York, (touring)
1990 The Journey, Lincoln Cathedral, UK. Collecting for the Future: A Decade of Contemporary Acquisitions, Victoria & Albert
Museum, London, UK
1989-93 Anima Mundi, Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Canada
1989-90 New Icons, Mead Gallery, University of Warwick, UK. The Tree of Life, South Bank Centre, London (touring)
1989 Out of the Wood, Crafts Council of Great Britain (touring). Towards a Bigger Picture, Tate, Liverpool, UK. Artists in National Parks, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK. Photo Sculpture, Watershed, Bristol, UK
1987-8 Knowing Your Place, Artists; Parish Maps, Common Ground (touring)
1987 Towards a Bigger Picture, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
1986-7 Image and Exploration, The Photographers Gallery, London (touring)
Land Matters, (touring), The Elements, Milton Keynes Exhibition Gallery, UK

Selected public collections

Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France
British Land Company, London, UK
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, USA
Conoco PLC
Deutsche Morgan Grenfell
Devon Country Art Collection, UK
The Fogg Art Museum, Boston, USA
The Gillman Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
Goldman Sachs
Goss-Michael Foundation
Government Art Collection, UK
Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, UK
Hiscox PLC
Houston Museum of Fine Arts, USA
Sir Elton John Collection
Museet for Fotokunst, Odense, Denmark
Kasama Nichido Museum of Art, Tokyo, USA
National Museum of Film, Photography & Television, Bradford, UK
National Trust Foundation for Art, UK
National Westminster Bank Collection, London, UK
Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney, UK
Prendimi, Japan
Queen Alice Aqua
University of Warwick, UK
Usher Gallery, Lincoln, UK
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK

Bibliography

2010 The Colour of Time, Black Dog Publishing, London
2008 Time Passage, Garry Fabian Miller, James Hyman Fine Art, London
2007 Year One, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh
2006 Exposure, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh
2005 Illumine, Martin Barnes, Merrell Publishers Ltd, London
2003 Thoughts of a Night Sea: Photographs by Garry Fabian Miller, Lavinia Greenlaw, Merrel Publishers Ltd
2001 Tracing Light, David Alan Mellor, Garry Fabian Miller, Photo Works
1997 Under the Sun, Christopher Bucklow, Susan Derges, Garry Fabian Miller, Adam Fuss,Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
1991 The Gatherer - Garry Fabian Miller, Rupert Martin, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton

Back to top of page

All prices are subject to change without notice and availability is subject to prior sale. Please call or email the gallery for current pricing & availability. Thank you!