Bill Miller was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1962. He studied at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, and was a founding member of the Industrial Arts Co-op, which constructed immense sculptures from found materials inside abandoned mills and factories. Their goal was a collective artistic response to the decaying industrial infrastructure and its devastating impact on local communities – a rust belt of crumbling towns and massive empty structures. While scavenging, Miller was drawn to scraps of vintage linoleum and compulsively began collecting what was to become his new palette and principle medium for the next 30 years.
Miller’s work has long been shaped by the tragic impact of industrialization. The grandson of a coal miner and the son of a factory worker who were both killed in industrial accidents, he gives voice to this unrecognized history through the surface of his chosen medium. Using the pre-existing patterns of salvaged linoleum to deftly evoke plumes of factory smoke, stormy waves, or poignant domestic scenes, his complex collages create new allegories from the myth of middle America.
Rather than modifying the surface of this now out-of-fashion material, Miller instead chooses to transform its plainness into layered pictorial arrangements, while letting its own material legacy speak. In his hand, linoleum evokes commonplace memories, as well as broader narratives of industrialization, deindustrialization, violence, and loss that have shaped much of American culture and Miller’s own life as a working-class artist. In the process, he imbues the once utilitarian material with emotional resonance and natural grandeur, transforming salvaged media into something precious and collectible.
