MIRROR MIRROR
Mixed with an awful lot of Americana it’s an American beauty. In fact, McAlpine Miller’s women remind me of the soundtrack for ‘American Beauty’, the movie (Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening, 1999), when rock band Free, sing, ‘All Right Now’, “There she stood in the street. Smilin' from her head to her feet...” 1 So confident, so powerful, they do, right out of the canvas. Timeless in pictorial creation and composition, its mix, rooted in aesthetical Classical ideals, coupled with commercial Americana, are qualities seen in ‘It’s A Fair Cop’, as Top Cat high jinxes Officer Dibble, juxtaposed by not one, but two, gorgeous, buxom, female police chiefs standing strong in stance and determination. Suggesting we all have two sides; the one that we let people see and the one that we don’t; a good side and a bad side; a restrained, respectable, side and a darker, more seductive side; a history and a future. And let’s be honest, no one can deny it’d be the ultimate male fantasy. As put forward by the artist, “the main characters in these works reflect this idea” . This is most appropriate in achieving painting’s primary goal of elevating the human spirit, and accomplished in ‘Never Give Up’ . Significantly (as a fitting commemoration to all Wars), it depicts a man, not a woman, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, showing power through the comic-book, with much determination and yet he still needs us. With this, McAlpine Miller captures values that are of worldwide concerns, not merely temporal.
And this is McAlpine Miller’s skill, the juxtaposition of the cartoon and the fantasy, made real.
© Estelle Lovatt FRSA
1 Writer(s): Andy Fraser, Paul Bernard Rodgers. Copyright: Blue Mountain Music Ltd.
xxxx Original Oil on Canvas | xx cm x xx cm
STUART McALPINE MILLER | 7
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