MIRROR MIRROR
backdrop like a theatrical film set. It’s how his paint has a see-through translucence about it, as if he’s using transparencies. He paints with light and curious perspectives, the pattern(ing) of a highly structured composition, so abstract in its geometry of mathematical proportions, balanced with the Divine Proportions of the Golden Ratio, beautifully. Much is accomplished with technical genius, that his attention to fabrics and textures show off his talent and skill so greatly, Veronese would be jealous. Whilst Vermeer’s paintings of women show a place where woman are lit by the heavens, a simple pictorial tool to glorify women, McAlpine Miller’s suggestion of an invisible light is visible in the cartoon sense. Feelings present, without being illustrative. Emotions bubble under the skin of dried varnished oil paint. And, beneath it all, under glistening surfaces, it’s all about things that are not said; about opportunities not taken; about chances to be seized; potentials to be realized; lips kissed as in ‘Why Don’t You Ever Call’, as the Babe hangs on the telephone line waiting for her Superman. As we all are. However diverse the relationship is in crossing boundaries and cultures, McAlpine Miller’s exceptional perspective delivers flashes of time from the past to the present, that, just as you recognise a voluptuous Rubens female or Twiggy behind David Bailey’s lens as fashionably sexy in their time, you’ll recognise a McAlpine Miller model. As McAlpine Miller’s women busy themselves in his ‘theatrical stage’, each gains authority, becoming their own, powerful, Superhero, symbolic and allegorical in meaning, with its own specific religious beauty, as in Sassoferrato’s radiant, glowing, Renaissance portrait ‘The Virgin in Prayer’, his canvas stands up like a Classical painting. Elegant, technically sophisticated and complex. What look like simple compositions, of timeless moments, are also about great art in form, linear brush stroke and depiction/definition of the figure under what looks like a controlled, yet dynamic, use of lustrous colour. The colours in McAlpine Miller’s pictures are so of the cinema, in high definition. And in the numerous way(s) that each one tells a story, and overlaps its imagery. Their message is significant, from America’s Golden Age of Hollywood to the upright Norman Rockwell mother-figure; from Wonder Woman, to her original, the Gibson Girl, by illustrator Charles Dana Gibson. All embody the personification of the most ideal type of (American) woman, to whom women aspire, even today. Cinema - aside from being one of the greatest inspirations to Cubism, is of great inspiration to all people. And was especially so in the 1930s Great Depression as Hollywood entered its Golden Age - the Imperial Era of cinema - and The Wizard of Oz became a timeless classic. This movie became as much a symbol of the United States as the Stars and Stripes. Instantaneously, it became the greatest American movie of all time, capturing the world, its sense of hopefulness and the zeal of childhood. “We seem to be caught in an image-related environment where looks dictate...that our reality relies purely on image and how that image is regarded” , exclaims the artist. How The Wizard of Oz digests technicoloured rinses of
STUART McALPINE MILLER | 5
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker