Dutes Miller’s phallic sculptures are driven by an investigation of queer male sexuality through a tactile exploration of materials, most often plaster, resin and paint and also including fabric, feathers, horns and other found objects. Miller is interested in the notion of an object that is penetrable (orifice) versus one which penetrates (phallus); appearing to be in states of transition, his sculptures attempt to find the potential conflation of the two. In his collages and artist books, he examines the spaces where the artist’s inner life, queer subcultures and mass media intersect, appropriating images from pornographic websites, magazines and his own imaginings to investigate alternative standards of beauty, visualizations of lust and desire found on the internet, and power dynamics in sexual relationships. Michelle Grabner wrote in ArtForum, “Miller’s mixed-media collages on paper incorporating penis figures striking silly states of repose and activity are enjoyable vignettes, demonstrating nimble material interplay.”
Dutes Miller’s work has been written about on artforum, Hyperallergic, the Huffington Post, the Chicago Reader, Time Out Chicago, New City, and the Chicago Tribune and has been included in exhibitions at several national venues including Andrew Edlin Gallery in New York, Lump in North Carolina, White Flag Projects in St. Louis and in Chicago at the Hyde Partk Art Center, Ukrainian Museum of Art, Tiger Strikes Asteroid and The Franklin.
His collaborative work with his husband Stan Shellabarger, as Miller & Shellabarger, won a 2008 Artadia Award and a 2007 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation award and has been written about in Art in America, Artforum, Art & Auction, Frieze, Artnet, The Art Newspaper, Flash Art, and the Chicago Tribune. They have work in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, DePaul Art Museum, Indiana University Art Museum, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Spencer Museum of Art, among others. Miller received a BFA from Illinois State University. He is represented by Western Exhibitions in Chicago and lives and works in Chicago.