|
Self Portrait© 2003 William Max Miller
William Max Miller is a practicing mental health therapist who
currently lives and works in McKeesport, PA. He began painting and
drawing when he was ten years old after becoming friends with local
PA artist Sarah Bruce Wilson. Miller became enthralled with the
possibilities of digital art soon after purchasing his first PC. “At
that time, I had a pretty basic image processing program, but even
with that I got totally excited with the way images could be quickly
distorted, warped, twisted, blended and enhanced. The possibilities
were infinite.” Miller uses art to exteriorize the contents of his
unconscious and create “talismanic” works, i.e., images that help
viewers contact and enter other dimensions. “The biggest inspirations
for my work are my dreams, nightmares, and hypnogogic visions. These
experiences are portals to other worlds.” Miller’s favorite artists
are Bosch, Piranesi, Fuseli, Dali, and H.
R. Giger, whose surrealistic nightmare visions exert a major
influence on his art.
He also
employs Hermetic, alchemical, necromantic, and Qabalistic themes in
many of his symbolic compositions in order to create magical pieces
designed for ritualistic purposes. Miller has successfully sold his
prints on Ebay for many years, and was recently commissioned by
The Warehouse of Terror in Van Wert, Ohio, to do artwork for
their annual haunted house attraction. The California-based Goth
Metal band Crimson Lacrymosa used one of his skull prints as a CD
cover, and Dennis Báthory-Kitsz, a descendant of the infamous
vampiric Elizabeth Bathory, features Miller’s unconventional portrait
of the Blood Countess on his website
Erzsébet.
Miller casts his dark
artistic shadow in many other places on the internet, where sites
such as the Lovecraft-oriented
Nightscapes, the
Official Boris Karloff Home Page,
and Bill Eichman’s occult
Telestrion
all feature his works.
He regularly sells his disturbing
creations directly from his online galleries at
his online store and has a
Myspace-based fan group
(Les
Galeries de Marquis Gothique)
which already has over 14,000 members.
You can also buy
Miller’s prints and get to meet the artist himself at various horror
film and Pagan/Wiccan conventions. He is currently engaged in the
creation of a Tarot deck, and is always busy doing research for his
Egyptology website,
The Theban Royal Mummy Project, which
was featured in the Discovery Channel’s
online web magazine. Mr. Miller has also been a previously featured
guest at the
Monster Bash Conference and the
Dark Xmas Convention.
This
article was printed in the July 2007 issue of
Dark Realms magazine
.
|
