Steve Miller at Elga Wimmer
October 1992
In three new paintings and a series of 45 drawings, Miller uses the same techniques that have preoccupied him over the past three years. Basically, he deploys an electron microscope to capture blood cells or molecules or other microscopic elements of the body, feeds these into a drawing-programmed computer, and photographs the results directly off the computer screen. Over these recondite images he adds–to the paintingsseveral layers of silkscreen, oil, and enamel, and-to the drawings- one layer of silk screen with touches of charcoal, pencil, and gouache.
Perpetual Crisis, which measures 65 by 47 inches, was one such intensely tricked-up picture. In diptych form, the left half showed big, fruity-looking molecules or cells covered over with black-and-white silkscreen and touches of a kind of lime ochre; the right half featured what looked like huge blood platelets in shades of gray and white.
Less garish and freakish were the drawings, which covered three of Wimmer’s walls. The all-black-and-white nature of these works offsets the biological histrionics of the paintings with rather rhapsodic images resembling spilled paint, wire-mesh screening, even close-ups of painterly brushstrokes. The techno-esthetics of the large canvases appeared, ultimately, gimmicky. The drawings – even those resembling mushroom clouds-had great style, finesse, and, somehow, seemed more human.
– Gerrit Henry