Andrew Miller - Sixes and Sevens

27 January to 15 April, 2007

Andrew Miller: installation view, "Sixes and Sevens", Inverleith House, 2007.

Andrew Miller is an artist long held in high regard amongst a celebrated generation to have emerged from Glasgow School of Art in the 1990s. In this, his first solo exhibition in Scotland, he displayed many of the qualities which have come to define his art over the last 15 years. Four new works; Hide, Mirrored Pavilion, Station and Frame, all completed in 2007, demonstrate Miller's engagement with abandoned, often utilitarian objects and architectural fragments- and places, which appeared charged with an unfamiliar presence.

Dominating rooms 1 and 3, Mirrored Pavilion was a meticulous interpretation and reconstruction from photographs, of an abandoned shack first seen by Miller from a motorway in Trinidad - where he was working as artist-in-residence in 2001 and 2002. Found lying in a field on the edge of town, it was impossible, even on close inspection, to gauge the building's history or purpose. Its structure suggested that what Miller was looking at was only half of an original building, the other half having at some stage been removed. At Inverleith House, the 'pavilion' in room 1 was accompanied by its 'imagined' other half in room 3 and the thought that these are two mirrored halves which could, somehow, be reunited.

At the entrance to room 1 was the first of a pair of photographs taken by Miller in the Scottish Borders on a forest edge. The sense of unease felt by the viewer at not being able to see into the dense forest had its counterpart in the second photograph (in room 2), taken from within.

In the opposite corner of this room, the shiny, black Station was a reconstruction from memory of a discarded wooden shop unit, found in a lane near the artist's Glasgow studio - its original purpose unclear, due to its incomplete state. Miller's introduction of a black lacquer finish, not present in the original, goes only part-way in providing a clue to its possible history. Propped awkwardly on a concrete post it has assumed a sculptural identity entirely of its own.

No such ambivalence existed in the pale blue Frame, installed in the Secret Garden, which was used by the occupants of Inverleith House as a private garden when it was a family residence. A painted reproduction of the frame of a childrens' playground swing, found incomplete and abandoned in an field above the coast near Oban, it calls into question the relationship between form and function and the distinctions which separate art from reality.

Andrew Miller: "Station", lacquered MDF, mirrors and concrete post; installation view, "Sixes and Sevens", Inverleith House, 2007.

WORKS IN EXHIBITION

ENTRANCE TO ROOM 1 AND ROOM 2

Hide, 2007. Digital colour prints.

ROOMS 1 AND ROOM 3

Mirrored Pavilion, 2007. Wood, corrugated sheeting, perspex and mirrored perspex.

ROOM 2

Station, 2007. Lacquered MDF, mirrors and concrete post.

SECRET GARDEN

Frame, 2007. Painted steel. This is located off the path which leads from Inverleith House, east towards the Glasshouses.

BIOGRAPHY

Andrew Miller was born in Dartington, Devon in 1969 and studied at Glasgow School of Art, where he gained Honours and Masters degrees in Fine Art Photography (in 1991 and 1993 respectively). He has taken part in many group exhibitions, including: New Art in Scotland (CCA, Glasgow and Aberdeen Art Gallery), BT New Contemporaries (1994), Hong Kong Island (Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, 1997), Here + Now, Scottish Art 1990-2001 (DCA, Dundee and other Scottish venues) and Resident (CCA7, Port of Spain, Trinidad, 2003). He has worked on many public and private architectural and design projects - acting as consultant on the redevelopment of the Tron Theatre in Glasgow with fellow artist Richard Wright (1997/8), designing and fabricating benches for Dundee Contemporary Arts (1999) and creating the bookshop (Made in Brazil) for the Fruitmarket Gallery in 2003. He has exhibited new work (with Richard Wright) commissioned by the Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), 2007. Previous solo exhibitions have included Installation at the Percy Miller Gallery in London (2000) and Other people's time at the FRAC Des Pays De La Loire, Carquefou, France (2006). This was his first solo exhibition in Scotland.

All works courtesy of the artist.

For further information about the exhibitions or events, please ask at the reception desk or contact Inverleith House

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Andrew Miller - Sixes and Sevens

WORKS IN EXHIBITION

ENTRANCE TO ROOM 1 AND ROOM 2

ROOMS 1 AND ROOM 3

ROOM 2

SECRET GARDEN

BIOGRAPHY

Discover more