Rebekah Miller 
2023 Longlist
Artist Bio
Working in various mediums including drawing, sculpture, printmaking and photography, Rebekahs practice is informed through human interactions with nature conveyed through notions of “skin.”
Rebekah completed her BFA at Alberta College of Art and Design in 2008 and her MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2011. She has shown her work in Canada as well as internationally. Most recently, she exhibited her sculptural work at the AGGP (Dissecting Identities) in Alberta and the Salt Spring National Art Prize finalist exhibition in British Columbia. She lives and maintains her art practice in Dawson City, Yukon.
Artist Statement
Within our clothing, we find our identities, ourselves and to some extent our homes. We inhabit our clothing as we do our skins. The notion of the skin as a form of clothing – a covering, as well as a primary indicator of the form in question – is a central concept within my practice.
Through the act of skinning, whether it is through the tactile imprint of the architecture, the removed exterior of a natural object or the reinterpretation of its form, I aim to provide an entry point into the elemental home, itself forming the matrix of our relationship to the natural world. It is through this process that I intend the viewer to gain a deeper understanding of our relationship to nature through the metaphoric inhabitation of these skins as well as to transport the viewer back into a landscape outside of modern culture – to a habitation more heavily rooted in the subliminal but also anchored in basic practices such as hunting, gathering, building and dwelling.
Through the act of removing these subjects from their natural environments and rendering them, they become objects of ornamentation and even reverence. In these transformations that I mean to display, I hope to evoke a recognition of the simultaneous celebration and subjugation of nature.
Photo by the artist
"Porcupine Corset"
2021, birch bark, lace, hardware, porcupine quills, 24”x16”x16”
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Created through the act of skinning and gathering bark from birch trees, the corset is a vessel by which the viewer may enter into the forest. The corset epitomizes the relationship which I see existing between human culture and the natural realm, a relationship which both recognizes and subverts.
"Grouse Four"
2023, graphite on paper, 22″x30″
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This series is focussed upon the male ruffed grouse and his role as it relates to hunting and other forms of cultural significance including craft and symbology. Through this subject, I represent the grouse in a succession of ways in an effort to convey concepts of life, death, food and craft. Through the actions of the grouse as well as through the beauty of his feathers, the final works and the narrative I have created attempt to pay tribute to the grouse as well as iconify him.
"Grouse One"
2023, graphite on paper, 22″x30″
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This series is focussed upon the male ruffed grouse and his role as it relates to hunting and other forms of cultural significance including craft and symbology. Through this subject, I represent the grouse in a succession of ways in an effort to convey concepts of life, death, food and craft. Through the actions of the grouse as well as through the beauty of his feathers, the final works and the narrative I have created attempt to pay tribute to the grouse as well as iconify him.
"Grouse Five"
2023, graphite on paper, 5’x10′
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This series is focussed upon the male ruffed grouse and his role as it relates to hunting and other forms of cultural significance including craft and symbology. Through this subject, I represent the grouse in a succession of ways in an effort to convey concepts of life, death, food and craft. Through the actions of the grouse as well as through the beauty of his feathers, the final works and the narrative I have created attempt to pay tribute to the grouse as well as iconify him.
"Falling Ceiling"
2023, relief print on fabric, 10’x20′
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Created by laying fabric over wood, this piece is meant to function as an entrance into this architecture and create a space for memory and longing in connection with the home.
"Grouse Two"
2022, graphite on paper, 22″x30″
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This series is focussed upon the male ruffed grouse and his role as it relates to hunting and other forms of cultural significance including craft and symbology. Through this subject, I represent the grouse in a succession of ways in an effort to convey concepts of life, death, food and craft. Through the actions of the grouse as well as through the beauty of his feathers, the final works and the narrative I have created attempt to pay tribute to the grouse as well as iconify him.