“I excavate artifacts from spaces that require proof of their existence. The world in which I procure these glinting fragments is exclusively feminine; a sharp but soft space that is a distorted reality of natural processes. It is a magical real. Bright and ghostly, this expanse opens up like a moth born orchid, where you can always dip your toes, but rarely ever submerge.

Fragments brought from this place are celebratory wayfinders and harbingers of pain. Often too bright, too lustrous-confections that make your lungs ache; air from a different place. These morsels are often concerned with camouflaging themselves in what seems familiar to them. This concealment fails in that their recognizability is alien to their actual surroundings.

Surface application and exploration is a constant thread throughout the work. Degradation-Demolition-Restoration-Amplification. This work is not afraid to speak up. An effeminate glimpse into a glittering, dangerous place that offers itself up like a steamed mirror, hiding only to swiftly return-bleeding through-pervasive and sharp tongued.”

-Kirby Miles

Mineral House Media: Your work showcases a huge array of surprising material behaviors. What does experimentation look like in your studio?

Kirby Miles: I would say it looks like an explosion. I tend to experiment in bursts, often filling my studios with failed and successful material tests, then I clean everything and implement what I learned from experimentation for the next month or so.

It’s definitely a cyclical process.

“ I want there to be an urge to take a bite of one of the pieces knowing that it might kill you if you do. ”

MHM: In your statement, you refer to your works as too bright, harbingers of danger. Do you feel these sensations are accomplishments of color? What draws you to the colors you use?

KM: Totally with color. I often choose colors that are too bright, too ‘plastic candy’ if you will. I want there to be an urge to take a bite of one of the pieces knowing that it might kill you if you do. I do a lot of research on aposematism (the ability for animals to display to predators that it’s not worth attacking or eating). I think this is allegorical with feminism.

I also have done extensive research on arsenical wallpapers in the Victorian era-the patterns and colors there are mesmerizing and deadly.

MHM: What attracts you to the properties of glitter, and how do you think its qualities compare to standard pictorial mark-making?

KM: Glitter, to me is like candy. It’s useless. You don’t eat candy for nourishment—it’s purely pleasure. The particulates that define glitter are meant to call attention to themselves—but I don’t think all of my paintings do this, some of them hide. It’s hard to get a slow reveal with painting—which I think is where I work the hardest in terms of mark making. I want there to be an element of revelation within the pieces which I do then push the glitter to do. It’s unnatural for the glitter of course, to behave like paint-to sit on the surface in that way.

“Moves make a bigger impact in a small space—one action can take up a whole piece. That attracts me, that failure is just around the corner.”

MHM: How do you make decisions about scale in your work?

KM: I think a lot of artists are pushed to ‘go bigger’ and I certainly have fallen prey to that notion, but if I am being honest the small-handheld pieces are what do it for me. Moves make a bigger impact in a small space—one action can take up a whole piece. That attracts me, that failure is just around the corner. I really like to be able to physically manipulate my paintings within my hands-sensuality maybe?

MHM: The language of the in-between emerges often in your writing: mirrors, ghosts, a pool into which “you can dip your toes but never submerge.” How do you think your paintings embody this feeling?

KM: In the ambiguity. There are moments within the paintings that blur the lines between recognizable and completely indistinguishable. That is the pool in which I like my work to send around—or in, depending on how deep I want to go with them.

MHM: What do you mean when you refer to your works as “evidence of a place that requires proof of its existence?”

KM: There is a backstory to my work—one that is not readily evident and one that I do not need viewers of my work to know. I am heavily influenced by the writing of Audre Lorde and her idea of biomythography. Creating a place that may or may not exist, but the true existence of this place can be disappointing in some ways. I often approach my work with the thought of ‘what would a rock (tree, land) look like in this place?’

MHM: At times you refer to the world of femininity as distorted reality, sharp but lush, saccharine and opulent. What are your thoughts on the feminine in your work?

KM: I equate the femininity in my work to be two fold. The first is a force—what would an entirely unbridled experience of our world be if it was ONLY feminine? It’s terrifying and wonderful. The other sentiment I would use in terms of the feminine within my work is going back to the notion of glitter and candy—absolute pleasure. I am a lesbian, so my studio is a queer space where I can basically have a conversation with myself about attraction to women.

I often use the phrase ‘weaponized candy’-a dangerous pleasure that allows no room for the masculine. It’s bright, and glittering, and likes to take up a lot of space.

MHM: You’ve spontaneously created an alien world... What is it like?

KM: Thank you for saying this! I work just as much on the concept of the world as I do the paintings themselves. It’s overwhelming to have no parameters, and often I get mentally very involved while making work in that world. At times, I have to take a break, not from making but from thinking. I really would like to write all of it down, but the intricacies always escape me when I put pen to paper.

MHM: What are you reading or watching that informs your practice?

KM: Audre Lorde Zami: A New Spelling of My Name-A Biomythography

Audre Lorde The Black Unicorn: Poems

Nick Bantock The Griffin and Sabine trilogy

Lucinda Hawksley Bitten by Witch Fever

*I am also watch Marilyn Minter videos on repeat*

In terms of non-art related influences I am watching The Queen (the aesthetic in that series is immaculate) and Birds of Prey (and essentially anything with Margot Robbie in it).

MHM: Can you tell us about VERSA and your role as a co-curator for that project?

KM: I adore my role at VERSA—and the people I work with. With the pandemic it’s been hard to view our roles as anything really-but meeting a planning, even over Zoom has been much needed during this time. We’re really trying to include a lot more BIPOC voices within our exhibitions at VERSA going forward and I am extremely excited to put together shows in the future.

I am really just an artist in a curator’s hat-within VERSA we usually allow the artists to make a lot of the curatorial decisions.

MHM: Do you have any upcoming events or shows?

KM: I just had a group show I was a part of come down at Stay Home Gallery in Paris, TN and barring the pandemic progression I hopefully have a solo show coming up locally in March, but everything is really on hold currently.

Kirby Miles is a painter living and working in Chattanooga, Tennessee She received her BFA from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2017 and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2019. She is also an alumni of Chautauqua School of Visual Arts. She is currently a co-curator at VERSA Gallery and teaches drawing at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

KIRBY'S WEBSITE

Interview with Kirby Miles