Lavely Miller paints portraits that narrate the effects of trauma, exploring visual cues that speak to loss, suffering, recovery and salvation. Physically still, her figures exist in moments of emotional action, their frequently direct gazes challenge the viewer’s attention. This sense of movement is translated through transparent layers of glazes, sometimes upward of 100 separate applications of color combining to create the final surface. The quality of layering is heightened by the use of paper, as it moves and crinkles during its application to create physical depth.
"You can paint anything with a finger that you can with a brush." - Lavely Miller
Classical Flemish glazing techniques — unusually applied almost exclusively with the artist’s right index finger — and the aged appearance of the painted surface give these figures a timeless quality, a frozen moment of physical time filled with universal human emotion.