Artist Statement:
I love the challenge of depicting this particular and peculiar Zen koan sounding concept: “Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form.” Except, the Zen masters are stating a fact of physics. The current thinking is that approximately only 4% of the universe exists in form and although solid-appearing, on the quantum level, within the forms, only more emptiness is found. To depict this, I decided to cast transparent resin, leaving most of it empty, and separately cast 2 square and 3 triangular shapes filled with items I’ve collected over the years. I inserted these as different layers were pouring, to symbolize their popping out of the emptiness into the world of time, each with age-limit before dissolving back into Emptiness. And at the base are the underlying mathematical codes that cause a chaos of sub-atomic particles to coalesce and evolve into the different forms ultimately created. We, alive here now, are all particles in the marvelous – our chance in this lifetime, to be awake and aware, dancing in the emptiness!
About the Artist:
Elizabeth Miller is a mixed-media painter and experimental sculptor with an abiding interest in science. She states “especially that illusive ‘nature of reality’ question,” and continues “I began to pursue my interest in Quantum Physics at Iowa State University. As luck, fate or mere fluke would have it, I got my head completely turned by taking an art course, Design 101. I had no idea art had a language with organizing principles, and I enjoyed every moment of the experience. At the end of the course, the professor asked me what program I was in? ‘Physics,’ to which he replied, ‘You know, you’re really good at this. You might want to take another art course.’ Had he not said those particular words, I might not have gone on, but I did take another, etc. until I knew I was hooked and switched majors. After graduating with a degree in Art and Design, I moved to Western Washington State and spent the next 30 years teaching art at Pierce College, the University of Puget Sound and The Evergreen State College, and creating murals and sculptures in public places, funded by such civic agencies as the State of Washington, Pierce County and City of Tacoma Arts Commissions and The National Endowment For The Arts. I moved to Volcano in 2004, where I was finally able to establish my dream studio, surrounded by native trees, forest birds, and the primal forces of nature. And, inspired by the notebooks of the definitive artist-scientist-engineer, Leonardo da Vinci, I began to create work that puts our environment and a multitude of sciences that I love into the art I love to make.”
Since moving to Hawai’i, Liz has won many awards for her work and has 3 sculptures included in the State Foundation’s public art collection at the Hawai’i State Art Museum [recently renamed, the Capitol Modern].
