Between Memory and Invention
- David Miller
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Interview with David Miller
1. Please tell us something about your background and your art journey so far.
I was born in London and studied at Goldsmiths College in the early 1970s, an environment that valued ideas, experimentation, and critical thinking as much as formal technique. That ethos has stayed with me throughout my working life.
I spent many years working as a filmmaker and scriptwriter, which shaped the way I think about images, as narrative spaces rather than static objects. Even now, I tend to approach visual work as if it were a paused scene from a larger, unseen story.
I returned to visual art later in life, bringing with me that background in storytelling and a long-standing interest in memory, perception, and identity. Today, my work uses AI-assisted image making as part of a slow, reflective process. I’m less interested in the technology itself than in what it allows me to explore: how images can feel emotionally true while remaining unstable, invented, or incomplete.
2. Describe what a normal day looks like as an artist.
My days are quiet and structured. I work early, often after meditation, when the mind is most receptive. Image-making for me involves long stretches of looking, adjusting, discarding, and returning. What might appear effortless at the end usually comes from dozens of iterations and hours of refinement.
There’s also writing, notes, fragments, captions, sometimes poems, that runs alongside the visual work. I don’t separate thinking from making; they inform each other constantly.
Afternoons are often spent editing, preparing prints, or reflecting on where a piece sits emotionally rather than technically. I’ve learned that stepping away is as important as working.
3. Can you tell us more about the themes in your art and your inspiration?
My work centres on memory, particularly false memory, and the way identity is shaped by what we believe happened rather than what actually did. I’m interested in the fragile space between truth and invention, and how images can feel emotionally accurate even when they are not literally real.
Visually, I’m drawn to staged photography, cinematic stills, and a sense of suspended time. Many of my images feel like they belong to a moment just before or just after something significant has occurred.
Inspiration comes as much from literature and philosophy as from art, poetry, especially, has been a lifelong companion.
4. How does your art life impact other parts of your life?
Art has slowed everything down for me, in a good way. It’s made me more attentive, to silence, to rhythm, to the emotional weight of small details.
It’s also brought a sense of continuity. Rather than dividing life into “careers” or phases, I now see my work as a long conversation I’ve been having with myself for decades, simply in different languages.
5. Could you share any difficulties or hardships you’ve faced, and how you dealt with them?
Like many people, I’ve experienced loss and periods of uncertainty. What I’ve learned is that art doesn’t resolve these things, but it gives them a place to exist without needing to be explained away.
I don’t make work about hardship directly. Instead, I allow its emotional residue to inform the tone of the images, what’s withheld, what’s softened, what’s left unsaid.
6. What practical advice can you give to fellow artists?
Work slowly. Protect your curiosity. Don’t confuse visibility with value.
And perhaps most importantly: make work that satisfies you privately, even if no one else ever sees it. That private integrity tends to show, whether you intend it to or not.
7. What are you working on at the moment, and are there any upcoming projects?
I’m currently developing several interconnected series that explore memory, absence, and inherited emotional landscapes. Alongside this, I’m preparing a more reflective body of writing to accompany the images, something closer to a visual journal than a traditional artist statement.
There’s no rush. I’m interested in work that has time built into it.
Website: https://davidmiller.art
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inlovewithitart/
