Nkese Miller turns heritage into profitable artwork

After participating in an exhibition in 2021 called, This is Us, at Arnim’s Galleria on Tragarete Road, Port of Spain, Nkese Miller was drawn to create pieces that depicted her ancestors in their glory and their activities, but the Emancipation theme has always been prevalent in her work.

Art has always been a personal form of expression for Miller.

The 53-year-old said her mission for the work was in melding her background in textile designing mainly by tie dyeing with fine art painting techniques.

“The exhibition showed about 108 pieces which included hand dyed scarves, hand painting and batik. The bulk of the work was done showing my African people proudly celebrating their culture and heritage,” she said in an interview Business Day on Monday.

Miller then created her sole proprietorship business, Art by Nkese, in which she offers art pieces, traditional paintings, hand-painted garments, wall murals and designs.

She also does exclusively painted hand bags and other personal accessories, hand-painted wearable art, clothing and household items.

“We are grounded in the idea of unique one-of-a-kind pieces and that every work of art is special in its origins as well as to its clients. I felt it was important to offer people something original, with the understanding that anything purchased would be something that only they would own. The need for exclusively made work where attention to detail is given, was my entire idea of what my business idea is all about,” she said.

Miller has been painting and drawing for as long as she can remembers, but was formally trained in art and design by the University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus.

There she earned a certificate in visual arts before getting her bachelor’s in fine arts and textile designing from the Pratt Institute of Design, New York.

“Apart from that I have involved myself in other workshops, especially in learning and practising my art in textile designing.”

Miller’s favourite pieces to date are her African-inspired ones where she painted on brown cotton with acrylic paints showing African people performing mundane tasks such as talking to each other on the pavement and playing the drums.

She has also completed a piece of what she interprets Genesis to look like if it were embodied by a woman – Genesis is an account of the creation of the world, the early history of humanity and of Israel's ancestors and the origins of the Jewish people.

Miller said her painting can take between a day to three weeks depending on the size, theme and medium she is working with.

“I work in most mediums of acrylic, charcoals, pen and ink, chalk pastels, watercolours, coloured pencils and now recently craft beads.”

Her work ranges from $200 to $12,000 and that includes most of the mediums and styles – paintings, clothing or wall murals.

“Due to the fact that I work with a multitude of mediums the cost of my mediums vary considerably and I am dealing with all the variables that can appear, so it is quite difficult to put a price on what the costs are.”

The multimedia artist recalled her first sale at age six.

“It was a hundred dollars, yet my greatest sale came at the age of 14 when I sold an 18x24 acrylic piece of an Italian landscape that I sold that at the time for US$200. I was so proud.”

Miller added that the feedback from her customers and admirers have been remarkable.

“They have been intrigued by my mediums especially the pieces painted on brown cotton, also the subject matters and the techniques used in my work and my attention to details. People gravitate to the old or familiar images I paint of people in familiar situations, but most of all to my usage of colour.”

She said her love for vivid, vibrant colours is truly represented in her work as that how she sees the world.

“I see the world as one large canvas of colour and movement, where the shades blend and sometimes blur, yet if one looks closely we can pin point all the various shades of the colour of green on one blade of grass, for example. Art is life and we as a people need to start seeing our world and environment as one large canvas where there is absolute beauty in the creation of our planet and learn to embrace it.”

Miller’s work is available at the Kuttage Artisan Shop, Radisson Hotel, Wrightson Road or through her directly by her social media pages – Nkese Designs on Facebook and nkese_miller on Instagram.

“The sale of my work has always fluctuated, but the responses has always been favourable… as is now at the Emancipation Village at the Queen’s Park Savannah. The interest in my work has gained interest and momentum, which encourages me to create more and explore different avenues.”

Miller also does commissioned pieces and collaborates with other artists on multifaceted works of art. Other than working on her own pieces, she also offers classes on an individual basis, but she actively does workshops for various mediums such as natural dyes designs or batiking – an Indonesian technique of wax-resist dyeing applied to the whole cloth. This technique originated from the island of Java. Batik is made either by drawing dots and lines of the resist with a spouted tool called a canting or by printing the resist with a copper stamp called a cap.

To relax, Miller channels her creativity into home decor, gardening and more painting, but finds herself expressing her thoughts more through her work.