Noah Miller

Noah Miller - Curatorial Rationale


Growing up, I have always been extremely interested in and influenced by pop culture. From watching Saturday morning cartoons or anime while I ate breakfast, to sharing moments with my family members and friends, and even just exploring and learning about different things on my own. Music, television, movies, and cartoons have had a significant impact on my youth and even my style of art.

I would read cartoons like Big Nate or Calvin and Hobbes and recreate panels that I found funny as a sort of practice to get better at drawing. This would eventually graduate into my own style of art, even beyond just cartoons and into different styles and forms such as the pieces in my exhibition. Many of the works in my exhibition were somewhat experimental in the sense that it was my first time seriously creating art using materials i wasn't comfortable with such as oil pastels and acrylic paint. This helped me express my theme of pop culture with all the pieces in my exhibition, and also helped individualize these pieces as well to better suit the tone of whichever composition I was working on.

"The Terminator"

10" x 15"

Oil Pastel

I wanted to put a twist on the poster for the 1984 film “The Terminator”. I created a self portrait and gave myself the damaged mechanical eye of the terminator machine.



"Please Don't Do Lean"

8" x 4" x 14"

Multi-Media


I used two shoes and tin foil to portray two figures regurgitating lean, a popular drug that negatively affects the lifestyle of a lot of young people which has become heavily normalized by pop culture today.


"Man On The Moon"

5" x 5" x 6"

Multi-Media

I recreated the iconic moon scene from the 1902 film “A Trip to The Moon”. I used a styrofoam ball and sculpted the facial features from tin foil. Then I covered the ball and the tin foil in duct tape, and painted over the surface.

"Greedy Man"

6" x 8.25" x 10"

Acrylic Paint, Styrofoam

In movies, there is often a character or antagonist figure that is consumed by greed, and this greediness inevitably leads to their downfall. I used a styrofoam head to express a person consumed by greed, and I dressed the scrapes from the styrofoam as wounds this greed can cause.

"Celestial Lady"

12" x 15"

Acrylic Paint


I had a thought to create something to express my appreciation for the women in my life. I decided to use non organic colors for the figure to express a feeling of "divinity" which was somewhat experimental, since I didn't use a model or any reference. I also used a dark background, with a light surrounding the figure to give her more of a glow to really accent the feeling of a presence. This piece doesn't exactly relate to my theme, however I thought it would be an interesting concept to make something out of.

"Drive Sober Or Get Slammed"

8"x 12"

Digital Media


This was a digital piece I made to bring awareness to drunk driving. I used a cartoon style approach to give the poster a more lighthearted tone, but still get the message across. This didn't exactly relate to my theme, however driving sober is an important message especially to young drivers.

"Things Important To Me"

9" x 12"

Ink

Over the first quarter on online school, I spent a lot of time at home due to the pandemic. I thought about the things that were most important to me, and I ended up creating a sort of nostalgic piece. I used a black and white ink medium and I went towards a different approach with marker to highlight lighting and shading details. When all of these things come together, it radiates a summer movie feeling for me, which is the nostalgia I was going for.