Art Gallery F19
by Michele Malinchak
Most of us look outside our window and see only what our eyes allow, but Rodney Miller always sees something more. Often what lies just beyond his window provides fertile ground for his imagination. Take, for instance, one winter when he looked outside and thought, “I wonder what it would look like if I put some acrylic paint on that snow…”
As a digital abstract artist/fine art photographer he’s not interested in capturing what the camera sees, but rather what he sees. He uses the camera as a tool to create a work of art rather than digitally recording a subject, which is what distinguishes fine art photography from other fields in photography. If something catches his eye, he expands on it, thinking, “Now, what if I did this next.”
His compositions range from realistic to highly abstracted. Rodney enjoys photographing architectural cityscapes and rural landscapes including trees, leaves, rain drops and clouds. His fine art photos of Philadelphia and Boathouse Row at night capture the spirit and beauty of the city, while his digital abstract work transports the viewer to another dimension. Here objects appear three-dimensional as they float in surreal space in sparkling, jewel-like colors. Some are shiny and metallic like polished steel, others resemble planets or rare minerals. Still other works have a softer, organic quality.
Blending digital and traditional photography, his goal is to create images that rouse the unconscious and stir viewers’ emotions. Rodney enjoys the challenge of turning ordinary subjects into the extraordinary stating, “I seek to uncover the graphic elements of color, shape, line and repeated patterns not usually seen by the viewer.”
A few years ago a friend introduced him to the concept of fractals, a mathematical term which Webster defines as a ‘fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided into parts.’ “From that day on,” he said, “I was hooked.” The repeated patterns of fractals are at the core of his work and can also be found in nature, such as in cloud formations, coast lines, tree branches, snowflakes and even veins in the human body.
Rodney often spends hours on the computer working with endless combinations of mathematical equations to compose his abstract images. Ironically, he said, “I hated math.”
His fractal abstracts all start with a real digital photo that is enhanced by various software applications enabling him to generate geometric shapes. Sometimes this involves as little as one click on a software application selecting the special feature he desires.
“I see the results as a kind of surrealism or magic that arises from the contradiction between what we see and what might be there if it were magnified, multiplied, pushed and pulled,” he said. He often seeks feedback on his compositions by posting them on Facebook.
Rodney enjoys doing photo constructions which involve constructing a scene from several photographs, often building a large 3-D collage. “I sometimes take the initial image and recombine using collage, cropping, exposure, colorization and/or sharpness adjustments, but otherwise employ minimal manipulation.”
With more than 35 years as an artist/photographer, the 70-year-old Morrisville resident is always looking for ways to push his art to the next level. He does all his own printing and experiments with new materials such as amate lace paper which is made from tree bark. His work generally ranges in size from 11 by 14 inches to 12 by 18 inches, the largest photo measuring 16 by 20.
Rodney has also printed on sheets of plastic which he said is a lot like making Shrinky Dinks, the popular children’s activity. After the image is printed on plastic it gets baked in his toaster oven. “I wear oven mitts so I can shape by hand while it melts and shrinks,” he said. Sometimes he will cut out pieces and hot glue them together to make a photo collage.
His creative experiments in photography often earn him the ‘mad scientist’ label from his friends. Once he poured old latex house paint onto a rubber mat, sculpting it into landscapes as the layers dried. He has also melted balls of wax and sprayed aluminum foil with water, freezing it to use as mountains in a scene. In the photo pictured here he stretched cotton and illuminated it with Christmas lights for the background, then generated the cube and puzzle pieces on his computer. And that snow he painted with acrylics. The small painted patch, roughly 8 by 10 inches, later became a background in one of his abstract compositions.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Rodney was captivated by art at an early age and liked drawing comic book characters. At age 10 a whole new world opened up to him after his mother gave him a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye camera.
When he was in middle school she enrolled him in a local children’s art class at a recreational center where he went each Saturday for a year.
After graduating from high school in 1966, he attended the now closed Computer Institute of Philadelphia and earned a certificate in computer programming. Shortly afterwards he joined the Air Force where he was tested and immediately put into photography. His job as a precision photographic processing technician was to process and print aerial recon film from military jets. During his four-year term he was stationed in Massachusetts, California, Texas, Italy and Thailand.
When he left the Air Force, he attended Community College of Philadelphia and continued as a photography major to earn his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1986 from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art. While going to school, he worked full time on the graveyard shift for the Philadelphia office of the Internal Revenue Service. His jobs ranged from computer operator to senior manager in their information technology division.
In the mid-90’s digital cameras became more common, but for Rodney the switch from darkroom photography to digital came gradually. “Temple allowed me to use their darkroom for a while, but I got tired of it.” He even took a two-year break from photography before going entirely digital in the late ’90’s.
Since his retirement in 2006, he’s been able to pursue his passion full time. Rodney has exhibited in many juried shows as well as gallery shows in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio. He has won awards from the Philadelphia Sketch Club, Artists of Yardley and Artsbridge and is currently represented at Centre for the Arts and Lower Bucks Hospital, both in Bristol, PA.
His work is frequently exhibited at Bucks County Community College at the Gallery on the Lower Bucks Campus. In addition, he has had solo exhibitions at The Bucks County Visitor Center, Bensalem, PA, The Grundy Library, Bristol, PA and at Widener University, Chester, PA.
Rodney’s photographs are included in the collections of Bucks County Community College, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Aria Regional Cardiovascular Associates, and in the collection of former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and individual collectors.
In addition, Rodney is currently a member of Artsbridge, Artists of Yardley, New Hope Art Center, The Arts and Cultural Council of Bucks County and the Artists of Bristol. He also serves as president of the Artists of Bristol and was former vice president of Artsbridge and The Arts and Cultural Council of Bucks County.
From September 1-29 his work will be featured in a show entitled “Fall Into Abstraction” along with other abstract artists at the A Space Gallery, 37 W. Bridge St., New Hope, PA. Rodney’s photographs can be seen on his Facebook page: www.facebook.com/EZrod.
Michele Malinchak is a freelance writer from Quakertown, PA.