John Miller’s introduction to Art was in primary school. He had to draw the Montgolfier Brothers in their balloon. It was a 2-person project. John wanted to do whole thing, but his teammate kept changing the hat, with John drawing bigger hat over it, etc. They had a huge fight and were thrown out of class.

He became a chef, and then one day had to make a cold buffet for a party. He got creative and made blue aspic, fish like birds, etc., but was rejected so decided to embark on artistic interests proper.

Started doing drawings.

He started drawing and moved to London, working in restaurants and informally continuing art. A friend suggested taking a course. He went to a local college, emptied his drawings on table and was immediately accepted.

At this time he started oils and continued to work during 7 years of education, all on various grants. He also did a fellowship at the same college.

After completing his 1st degree in painting, he made enough money to buy a flat in the football-fashionable area of Milwall in London. Turned off by people paying so much for paintings and treating them like private property, and interested in socializing his art, he turned to printmaking. Panting, according to him, creates one so-called precious object, which one person buys; printmaking allows for a more socialist approach to art, where many people can enjoy it.

The painting process is intense, and he still paints now, but printmaking affords distance and physicality. With paint you build up, print you take away. Printing is more scientific and mechanical, while painting is more intense – put a bit of paint on and then straight away you’ve got to put more, affecting the relationship with each other thing on the canvas. In printmaking you do something, complete it and then based on the result have to decide, after a first ‘run’. There are10 decisions to be made every second in painting, whereas printing do a drawing and then decide upon completion.

If he painted for 8-10 hours a day, he became very skilled. But the more skilled he became, the less interesting he felt his art became. A reliance on a style developed, something automatic, without self-discovery, just a showing-off of skill. Technique ruins, kills spontaneity. His paintings were getting boringly good.

Printmaking is very different, and it makes painting better. Painting is like a one-night stand, printing a difficult relationship you have to put a lot of work into. Painting looks gorgeous, easy, nice. Printing requires some masochism – it can utterly fail after two or three days work. Painting can be changed as one goes, and it is easier to recognize faults.

John did numerous gallery shows for a long time, and became very successful, flush with cash, and started thinking he was becoming quite good, as his paintings and drawings were in high demand. One day he had a show in a small pub in London. At the show, he set up about 60 paintings and stood back to look things over. He thought this is probably the best way to show his work, work is about people and being human, reaction and interaction, the opposite of galleries in which one can’t even sit down. Everyone loved it, and despite selling lots of work, he stopped exhibiting in galleries after that.

He has exhibited in Rotterdam, Barcelona, New York City, Berlin, and London. He was also in the New Contemporaries show in London (1991), toured through the UK but found the whole tour to be too much like fashion, not Art. England is too conservative – you are either a contemporary artist or romantic. At least in US there is a huge spectrum of work that one can make a living from. He is also a Member of Turkish Cartoon Society, a position which he cherishes.

He was asked to make a piece for the Hong Kong underground. He was influenced by a book about torture and was reading Samuel Beckett at the time as well. He made several linocuts, but wanted the organization to cast the linocuts into ceramic tiles. The organizers felt the work was too dark to ever be exhibited in public.

He has a dislike of art that’s precious and seeks a more interactive medium. There is a touch of fantasy as well as elements seen from everyday Japanese life – the ludicrous comic v. the hardcore serious.