Liz Miller / Justin Stephens

Opening Reception: Friday April 18th, 8pm Artist Talk: Liz Miller in conversation with Bill Clarke: 7pm

Mercer Union is pleased to present two new exhibitions: Front Gallery: Techno Deluge by Liz Miller Back Gallery: Cabin Fever by Justin Stephens

"Liz Miller is interested in systems – political, natural, technological and social. Her work reflects how systems are visually represented, how they interact with each other and what happens when they fail. For example, consider the tornado that transports Dorothy to Oz. When L. Frank Baum wrote the story in 1900, and when the film was made in 1939, storm tracking via satellite systems didn’t exist. Today, of course, they do. “Storm radar imagery is a beautiful visual representation of systems that wreak havoc and devastation,” says Miller. “The deadlier the storm, the more intricate and interesting the radar imagery is.”

Miller’s approach is similar to contemporaries Assume Vivid Astro Focus and Ryan McGuiness, whose eye-popping and boldly graphic installations critique systems of information distribution." - Bill Clarke, exhibition brochure.

Liz Miller received her MFA from the University of Minnesota in 2005. Recent solo exhibitions featuring Miller's large-scale installations include Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art (CO) and Sioux City Art Center (IA). She has participated in group exhibitions at venues including South Bend Regional Museum of Art (IN), Fieldgate Gallery (London), and the Soap Factory (Minneapolis). Miller recently completed a residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE, and is the recipient of a 2007 MCAD/Jerome Foundation Fellowship. She lives and works in Good Thunder, MN and teaches drawing at nearby Minnesota State University-Mankato.

"Justin Stephens’ work creates an idealized parallel universe where Modern Art can be put to the service of a hick’s down-to-earth wisdom or a hippy’s bitter sensitivity and spiritual yearning, and in both cases, within a resourceful economy of recycled materials. Maybe minimalist. Potentially conceptual. But if this is Modernism, it has packed its bags and moved to the sticks. - Joey Dubuc, exhibition brochure

Justin Stephens is an artist living and working in Montréal. He has recently relocated back to Canada after living in Australia for three years. In Montréal Stephens has exhibited at B-312, Galerie Clark and Quartier Éphémère. He has collaborated with the Australian collective, The General Will, at First Draft in Sydney, and participated in the ARC Biennial. In the past year Justin was short-listed for the RBC painting competition and was artist in residence at Point Éphémère in Paris.

Techno Deluge, Cabin Fever
Liz Miller, Justin Stephens