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James Miles

If James Miles (b. 1957) were to tell you a story it would have several well-defined but allegorical characters (three girls, a group of musicians, perhaps a bear and a salmon), involved in an activity both mundane and mythic (taking a drive, holding hands, exercising), with only the essential objects at hand (a table, racket, house, ball, balloon), situated within a vast, sometimes distinctively detailed space, but more often one that is completely open, unadorned, stretching infinitely up and away, a single lozenge shaped cloud, or the sun, the only interruption.

His telling would include these silent spaces, for Miles is soft-spoken and reticent, and these stories are told through his well-known ink drawings of miniature scenes. Their unusually combined perspectives blur the limits of inside/outside, near/far, small/large, male/female, and past/present to entice the viewer/listener into the paradoxically immense spaces of his diminutive artwork. They are spaces that use the logic of dreams and fairytales, but in Miles’ versions, the ambiguity is always celebratory. And like every great universally told story, his reveal our shared love of simple pleasures enjoyed with one another, on a gorgeous day that we hope will never end.

Miles has been an artist at Creativity Explored since 1997. In 2011, CB2, one of our Community Arts Partners, used Miles' work to adorn a pillow design.

Print Bio

Samples of Miles' work

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Selected Exhibitions

2012
Are We There Yet?
Parallel Visions

2011
SMALL
Faces
Create
The Masters
Black and White and Read All Over

2010
Ritual/Habitual
Where Are We?
Paper!Awesome!
Santos y Otros Creatures

2009
TV and Me
Songs from the Treetops
Legend: Myth and Memory

2008
Tasty
one of these does not belong
INsects INsectos
Quarter Century

2007
Miles in the Sky
access/Ability
Naked

2006
The Beat Goes on
Nature Rules
XTOWN2NE

2005
Aliens: the Green Ones

2004
Radiant Spaces: Private Domain
You Are Here
Functionable
This Container Isn't Big Enough

2003
Hello There Friend
Lit

2001
New Works on Wood
Created in California

1999
Whipper Snapper Nerd - Bronwyn Keenan Gallery
Whipper Snapper Nerd - Mark Moore Gallery

1998
Whipper Snapper Nerd - Yerba Buena Center for the Arts