Artist Feature: Alan Miknis
The people behind me in a checkout line...
A collection still in progress, Alan Miknis’ Middle Americana centers on the identical terrified expressions of its subjects. Working from a yard-sale find of an image of two singing children in Victorian clothing, Miknis outlined the shape of their heads and one forearm and used them to give continuity to each successive portrait. The results are stripped of unnecessary background and context, and elevated with the ornate and the mundane.
“Growing up in a rural, south-Georgia town, and living in San Francisco, both cultures push my work to define a median between necessity and excess. The portraits represent the people behind me in a checkout line, the people who cut me off on the road, and most definitely myself. Middle Americana is my attempt at describing the current image of the merging of those cultures.” –Miknis
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Alan Miknis lives and works in San Francisco. He is currently working on Middle Americana, Sober Drunkerered, and Cave Dwellers, a collection of works on wood. Alan has exhibited his work throughout the United States, most recently in San Francisco, Detroit, and Atlanta. Visit his official website, here. For more information: alanmiknis@gmail.com