The paintings I am currently engaged with are of Paris from a recent trip in June this year where I had a fifth floor attic studio on the Left Bank in the Seventh Arrondissement. Purposely choosing not to depict the plentiful iconic landmark vistas, I have chosen to look more inwards, at the very fabric and structure that accounts for the totally unique Parisian experience. These paintings are quite small oils which will eventually become much larger pieces once compositions and structural geometry have been refined, but the images linked to this page give you some idea in the progressive process, what specifically, I have been drawn towards. The City of Paris offers so much it becomes a very serious matter to cull from the many sketches and photographs made during my two week stay there.

I'm taken by the weathered earthy colours, possibly my main fascination with choosing subjects less obvious. The messy array of TV antennae and the ramshackle unkemptness of rooftops which is nothing like, and such a contrast to, the street level of meticulously maintained chic shop fronts and glamorously decorated windows with fashionable attire displayed, and sidewalk restaurants, antique and curio shops, charcuteries, boulangerie and delicatessens with all the glorious French food laid out. Not to mention the people themselves who are very handsomely dressed and groomed, but don't even get to populate my paintings unless caught gazing from a window or watering a planter of geraniums. As the works approach a more finished state I will add them to this site.

Au revoir,

John Miller

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