MiamMiam | Erin Miller and Annie May Johnston

This show explores recursion and memory through print in an investigation of dreamscapes and the imagination. These works exist in that moment of taking the last step, anticipating the end of the stairs, but being confronted by one more. And falling… the body propels, weight shifts, and there is confusion about existence—a shift between reality and expectation akin to sleepwalking or walking through a hedge maze. 

When sleepwalking, coexisting occurs. A coexisting within a space where sound and language become one, where the inside and the outside of the body integrates and where the watchful third eye stalks the curious tongue. These works serve as portals into the internal, contradictory world where nightmares and daydreams meet at one wavering horizon. Canker sores become access points for pleasure; sour candies sit whole in the stomach, embedding themselves into the lining of the body as keepers of past eaten experience.

Just as prints hold the memory of the mark that came before it, bodies hold the memory of muscle movement: inks spit, lick, and exchange fluids. Serving as a throughway point for the dreamworld, the mouth sets the stage for the mind and internal body’s waving peristalsis. Communication within these dreamscapes are packaged by the smell of breath, moments of confusion or pause, and layered bodily moments on display. Here, memory and flesh meet in an oscillation between reality and abstraction, nightmares and daydreams.

Erin Miller is a printmaker from Houston, TX, currently residing in Ithaca, NY. She has exhibited work at organizations such as Gallery Sonja Roesch (Houston, TX), Galveston Art Center (Galveston, TX), Bass Concert Hall (Austin, TX) and most recently at the Johnson Museum of Art (Ithaca, NY). This is her second exhibition at Box 13 Artspace and first time exhibiting with Annie May Johnston. Miller holds a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently pursuing an MFA degree at Cornell University. She is an artist member of Burning Bones Press in Houston, TX. 

Website: erinmillerstudio.com | IG: @erna_miller

Annie May Johnston received her MFA in Print from the University of Texas at Austin and has lived and worked in Los Angeles, Paris, Glasgow, New York, and San Francisco. Currently she is a full-time Lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin where she is the co-area head of the Print Area, co-directs the Guest Artist in Print Program and is the faculty sponsor for the UT Riso Room. She holds undergraduate degrees in Classics and Psychology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Recent awards include the Summer Creative Research Grant and the Faculty Fellows Endowment from the University of Texas at Austin. During 2020, Johnston participated in shows in Brooklyn, Boston, San Antonio, and St. Louis, among others. 

Website: anniemayjohnston.com | IG: @anniemayjohnston