In his catalogue essay for the exhibition Sean Rainbird, Director of the National Gallery of Ireland writes: ‘This series is a personal response to the passing of life, to slowly letting go, while celebrating life’s fragility and tenacity. As with much of Miller’s paintings its source is in Sligo, where he first travelled several decades ago, to become a painter in the manner he needed. With this moving group of still lifes, Miller closes the circle of return to the place he left to start out on the road’. The alliance of painting with remembrance and the passing of a life is not new. Western art has traditionally performed the role and in these paintings Nick Miller draws on this facility to connect to his mother during her slow decline with a terminal illness. But in these works there is no person, no likeness; the figure is evoked, but only as an absence. The key to the paintings are the vessels: the pots, vases and bottles that Miller’s mother had gathered around her in a lifetime of collecting; they represent the bodily presence, they have the capacity to hold memory and meaning without sentimentality. Borrowed and carried back to his studio with every visit to London to see his mother, they would be filled with whatever seasonal flowers, blossoms, weeds, branches, lichens or seaweed was available and painted as a studio still-life. They are quick paintings, made with a sense of urgency that Miller describes as ‘seeing the fullness of life before it passes. Making paintings this way offered some release in the face of transience and mortality, while still gambling on an afterlife in pigment itself’. Nick Miller (b. 1962 London) moved to Ireland in 1984 and was elected as a member of Aosdána (2001) in recognition of his contribution to Arts in Ireland. He won the inaugural 2014 Hennessy Portrait Award at the National Gallery of Ireland and has exhibited widely including solo shows at The Irish Museum of Modern Art and the RHA and the New York Studio School. His work is held in private and public collections worldwide including The National Gallery of Ireland; Irish Museum of Modern Art; Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane; The Arts Council (Ireland); The Niland Collection, The European Investment Bank, Luxembourg. The exhibition is accompanied by a 56 page hardback book with texts by Sean Rainbird and a new piece Electra in the Garden 1 written in response to the paintings by the Irish author Colm Tóibín.

Nick Miller and the studio of Edward McGuire Edward McGuire (1932-1986) is best known for his minutely detailed portraits of writers and poets, many of which have a surreal quality derived from McGuire’s love of unusual studio props such as stuffed birds and highly stylised leaf decoration. This feeling is strengthened by the often remote and static pose of the sitter defying the realist precision with which they are executed. In 2009 Sally McGuire, wife of the late Edward McGuire formally donated the contents of the artist’s Dublin studio to the National Collection at IMMA. The artist Nick Miller was invited by IMMA to respond to the contents of the McGuire studio and the exhibition is the culmination of this process. Miller’s response provides a timely focus on Edward McGuire’s preoccupations and processes and opens up the opportunity to re ect on the concept of the artist’s studio in all its interpretations. Nick Miller moved from London to Ireland in 1984, and has been based in Co. Sligo since 1992. His work, whatever his subject: a person, an object, or landscape, is concerned with portraiture and with how we experience and meet the world. Commenting on the project Nick Miller stated, “I want to step brie y into the Studio of Edward McGuire, into his shoes. Not into the way he painted, as our methods are so clearly different, but by addressing some of his subjects, both human and otherwise, that interest me on my own terms”. Rooms1to3 These rooms present a number of McGuire’s portraits, including those of poets Paul Durcan, Pearce Hutchinson and Anthony Cronin, examples of still lifes and a favourite motif, the white barn owl, as well as Miller’s own painted responses to some of the same sitters and studio props. For instance, Room 1 includes McGuire’s rst commissioned portrait of Wanda Ryan as a child in 1968. During his residency at IMMA Miller invited a number of sitters to his studio including Wanda Ryan-Smolin, who’s portrait is displayed alongside contents from the 1968 portrait including her doll and one of the books she listened to while sitting for McGuire. Similarly, the portraits of Anthony Cronin are accompanied by the props used in the McGuire portrait. Nearby is Miller portrait of the poet painted in September 2015. Other sitters include Garech de Brún whose portrait established McGuire’s critical reputation and Tresa Browne, McGuire’s step-daughter, as a child. Room 4 This room presents a profuse selection of objects, accoutrements and materials from the older artist’s studio accompanied by a short lm by Miller that examines McGuire’s extraordinary Colour Dictionary and love of jazz. In the stairwell hangs the portrait of the artist Patrick Collins from the IMMA Collection. It is unusual in the

Nick Miller (b 1962, London). Graduating in Development Studies from the University of East Anglia, he moved to Ireland in 1984, working first in Co Clare, then in Dublin. Since 1992, he has been largely based in Co Sligo. Miller pursues different genres and modes of working that allow direct engagement with subjects: portraits, landscape or object. Elected as a member of Aosdána in 2001 in recognition of his contribution to Arts in Ireland, he is the recipient of the inaugural 2014 Hennessy Portrait Award at the National Gallery of Ireland. Miller has exhibited widely including solo shows at The Irish Museum of Modern Art and the RHA and the New York Studio School. His work is held in many private, institutional and public collections nationally and internationally including The National Gallery of Ireland; Irish Museum of Modern Art; Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane; The Arts Council (Ireland); The Niland Collection, The European Investment Bank, Luxembourg. Selected exhibitions: Vessels: Nature Morte, Art Space Gallery | Michael Richardson Contemporary Art | Londnon (6th Sept- 15th Oct 2016) Nick Miller and the studio of Edward McGuire, Irish Museum of Modern Art (Nov 2015–May 2016); Vessels: Nature Morte, RHA, Dublin (2015); Sitting, Laois Arthouse, Stradbally, Co Laois (2014); YARD, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin (2012); Tree House 360, ̊ OH Projects, Boston/Concord Arts Association, MA. USA (2011); Rubicon Gallery, Dublin (2010); Painting Patrick: after Venus and Olympia, Kilkenny Arts Festival, Kilkenny (2011); Truckscapes–Paintings from a mobile studio, New York Studio School, New York (2008); Truckscapes–Drawings from a Mobile Studio, Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris (2007); Limerick City Gallery of Art, Limerick (2008); Rubicon Gallery, Dublin (2008); Genre, The Butler Gallery, The Castle, Kilkenny (2004); Figure to Ground, RHA, Dublin (2003); Closer, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin; Art Space Gallery, London (2000); Kilkenny Arts Festival, Kilkenny (2001); New Paintings, Art Space Gallery, London (1999); South African Works, Irish Museum of Modern Art (1994); Paintings & Drawings, Galerie D’Eendt, Amsterdam (1992) and The Shadow Line, The City Arts Centre, Dublin (1991); Twilights Raw, Project Arts Centre, Dublin (1988). In 2002 he curated the Irish visit of Chinese artist Chen ZhongSen including: Chen & Miller-East + West, The Model, Sligo. www.nickmiller.ie