Born and raised in London, Gary Miller was taught at a young age to repurpose and reuse materials to give them a second life. As a child, Gary’s grandmother, who was a seamstress in a couturier, taught Gary about fabrics, pattern cutting, hand sewing, and embroidery techniques, which he practiced endlessly wanting to learn her craft.
Gary attended various art and design schools from the age of 16 – 23 and has since then continued to draw as much as possible. During these formative years, Gary would frequent the museums of London, in particular, the Tate Britain as it is now known, the National Portrait Gallery and the Saatchi Collection where he was especially drawn to the artists who worked in unconventional materials, such as Damion Hirst, Anish Kapoor, and Gary Hume.
In 1995, Gary Miller earned a BFA degree in Fashion Design from Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication and pursued a career in that industry. He continued to take self-guided life drawing classes, where he experimented with various pens, inks, pastels, paints, and collage, again making use of what was around him.
In 2019, Gary has graduated with an MFA in Fine Art and painting from San Francisco's Academy of Art University, where he has developed a new series of contemporary mixed media portraits. In each of these works, Gary combines his original life model photographic imagery, his lifelong passion for fabric and textiles along with his raw approach to painting.