Stuart McAlpine Miller

Marrying an homage to the musical greats who’ve inspired him throughout his career with a deeper exploration of the people behind their performer personas, Stuart McAlpine Miller has produced a deeply complex body of work, imbued with symbolism.

Lost Lives is a series of original works that strives to honour the subjects in Stuart’s paintings, by recognising the role they have played in shaping the artist that he is today. Speaking of David Bowie, Stuart says: “His music reminds me of why I’m doing what I am today.”

The mixed media Split Personality originals are a creative progression from the origins of the Lost Lives paintings. Here the intention is to unmask the multiple personas behind the performer. In honouring these musical icons, Stuart intends to reveal that the spotlight often belied a darkness in the otherwise seemingly glittering lifestyles of these stars.

Stuart digitally remasters scans of the original paintings; through changing colours, adding symbolic references and removing elements, an entirely new image evolves. This new original piece becomes the printed base layer, over which Stuart hand-finishes a subsequent kaleidoscopic layer to complete the piece.

It is often the musician’s storytelling, the journey conjured through creating a compelling narrative, that appeals to Stuart. We see a similar trait within his art; multifaceted and rich with detail and meaning, it creates intrigue for the viewer. These paintings invite the onlooker to return multiple times to view the pieces, discovering something new with each glance, much like seeing a favourite band time and again in concert – you won’t see exactly the same performance twice. Commenting: “Talent like this needs to be celebrated...over and over again.”. Perhaps this was exactly Stuart’s intention, a prompt to his audience to unravel the multiple layers of each person depicted in Lost Lives.

Stuart McAlpine Miller’s beautifully executed debut collection of never-before-seen original art was launched at Castle Fine Art in Mayfair in September 2013. Stuart combines all the skill and industrial precision of a commercial graphic illustrator with the painterly prowess of an Old Master and the colour palette of a comic book inker. Altered Images is a distinctive and striking collection, featuring stylish, cool ‘supermodel-esque’ women, superimposed over brightly coloured cartoons, in an illusionary world of comic book characters.