Chris Miller
The Artist
I am a 69-year-old retired science teacher, community, and youth worker. Eight years ago, after an operation, I had stroke-like symptoms, affecting my writing hand, my face, my speech, and I now walk with the aid of a stick. I started going to Headway, where I was for the first time, encouraged to make art .
After having a stroke, I suddenly had a different body, and in some ways, I was a changed person. Art was a way of exploring and communicating what it felt like to experience these changes.
In a strange way, disability has freed me up to express myself in my art, and to no longer care so much about what others think. I have been forced by disability to come to terms with living in a less than perfect body in a less than perfect world.
My art is often my version of a famous picture, but with me as the subject. They are an exploration of how I cope with my new disabled body, and how this fits into and communicates with wider society. “Me as Venus”, for example, tries to say that it might not be good to be me, but it’s OK.
Exhibitions:
2016, Submit To Love, Stratford Arts Centre, London
2017, Making Faces, Southbank Centre, London
2019, Oh To Be Human, Could Be Good Gallery, London
2021, Me As Venus, Nomas Projects, Dundee
2023, Differently Various, Barbican, London
2024, Differently Various In Different Spaces, UCLH, London
Watch a short film made with film maker Posy Dixon featuring Chris
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