Ian Thomas Miller's Paintings Capture the Spirit of Youth

Capturing the spirit of youth in a natural, not trying-too-hard-to-be-cool way can be pretty tough, but painter Ian Thomas Miller pulls it off masterfully. His paintings conjure imagery of summers spent hanging out by someone's parents' pool, of long, lazy days and nights spent chilling with equally unoccupied friends.

The 22-year-old Chicago-based artist’s work pops with color and snippets of images that give a collage-like effect to may of his paintings. Hands are a recurring theme in much of his work these days, whether the fingers are dangling a cigarette or crossed over each other—perhaps for good luck, perhaps to take the jinx off of a lie. While these hands are clearly and perfectly rendered, faces are nearly always obscured.

"The obscuring of faces and fragmenting of imagery is definitely a significant part of my work at the moment,” Miller writes. "By obscuring the faces and focussing more on the compositions and the subtle gestures happening within them, I am able to emphasize of a certain kind of ambiguity. When focussing on gestures, objects, negative space (opposed to relying as heavily on facial features / expressions) and the ways in which they interact (or don't interact) implies a broader narrative and allows for a greater range of interpretations."

We’re pretty sure that 2016’s going to be a big year for the young artist. "I am working on a new body of work that, while still along the lines of what I have been working on, feels very fresh and exciting,” he writes.  "I'm hoping to put out a small book of drawings and paintings in the near future, but aside from that, I'm just hoping to show my work as much as humanly possible this year!"

To learn more about Ian Thomas Miller's work, click here.

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