Rotten Meat Gallery: Raw Art and Honesty
Opening Fri 12/23
By Isaac Mell
Following a crisis, painter Dan Miller will often create a piece out of the pain of the experience. This past summer when he lost his job, he decided to do something more.
“I’ve always wanted to own a gallery,” Miller says. “When I lost my job I decided to stop putting this off and go all in.”
Rotten Meat Gallery (1814 East 40th, Suite 4B) will open Fri 12/23 at 6PM.
“It’s not overwhelming, which I thought was really important, because huge galleries can be intimidating when you’re having solo shows,” Miller says. “This space was intimate and the price was perfect.”
Still, Miller has “sunk every penny,” including the gains from selling his motorcycle, into purchasing and renovating the space, an old lighting factory. He and business partner John Kalman are doing all of the physical labor themselves, removing the factory remnants to establish a classic gallery setting. Rotten Meat Gallery will be an intimate 2000-square-foot showcase for Cleveland-bred painters and photographers.
“The idea is I want to keep it as Cleveland as possible: show artists either still living here or artists from Cleveland,” Miller says. “The city has a lot to be proud of, and I just want to do my part to help expose that world to the larger population.”
Miller notes that while artists struggle to make a living in Cleveland, they do enjoy low-priced live-work spaces, supportive arts communities and accessible cultural experiences.
“There’s a culture, but without the pretension,” Miller says. “Most of the people I know that live in New York know that the scene is oversaturated, so there’s starting to be this look for the next city, and I think we have the perfect combination for that.”
In addition to curating established talent, Miller also hopes to initiate the careers of emerging artists.
“I have every intention of going to places like CIA or CSU and trying to find young artists who I think are ready to show,” Miller says. “I remember when I got asked to do my first show how amazing it felt, and the validation, because it can be hard, especially when you have a family that’s not supportive or friends that aren’t supportive or understanding of what it’s like to be an artist. People assume that if you’re an artist, you’re this flaky, float-around person who every once in a while creates something, but realistically, if you’re a hardworking artist, you’re your own company. You’re manufacturing, design, marketing, business, all of it.”
Of course, Rotten Meat Gallery is not just a way to improve the reputation and livelihood of other creative Clevelanders. By helping other artists, Miller will also be helping himself.
“Having my hand in this, and getting to interact with all these different artists, will help me personally as an artist,” Miller says. “The balance between running the gallery and doing my own art is a chance to basically deal with like-minded people who understand the creative process. It’s always wonderful to have other artists around, people who inspire you, people who challenge you. It’s always been the intelligent, insightful criticism that I’ve gotten that has pushed me harder than all the praise in the world.”
Outside motivation is especially important, as the intense, isolated experience of painting can be draining.
“I tend to have giant bursts of creativity where I’ll knock out thirteen or fourteen paintings in a week and a half and then I won’t paint for a while, because if you’re being totally honest, it takes an emotional toll,” Miller says. “There have been paintings that I’ve done that have been heartbreaking to do, but then, once they’re done, it does feel good. It’s hard to do the piece, because you’re dredging up all these things that you’re trying not to think about, but then when it’s done, you’ve created something beautiful out of that pain.”
Some viewers may well feel uncomfortable with works of such raw emotion, but Miller believes it is the artist’s prerogative not to censor inspiration.
“If an artist is doing a piece from a personal standpoint about something unpleasant, there’s always the chance that somebody could be offended, but I don’t think those things should be avoided because they’re unpleasant, either,” Miller says. “I’m not going to turn away something that’s emotionally charged or has the potential to offend people just because I want to protect people.”
In fact, some of the most powerful pieces—those most personal to the artist and truthful to their experiences—hold the most meaning for viewers, too.
Miller says, “One of the last pieces that I sold was to a guy named Dan, and he wanted to meet me before he bought a piece. He said, ‘You know, I stared at your piece for weeks deciding if I was going to spend money on it.’ The piece I’m talking about was insanely personal; it was about a pretty traumatic experience in my life, and he had been able to pick up on that and identify with it. And he got close—it wasn’t like he could understand exactly why I did the painting; it wasn’t like he opened a page in the book of my life and read it while he was looking at this painting, but I think the tone of the painting said the overall message. If you looked at it long enough I think anybody with any type of emotional depth can pick up what I was trying to go at.”
In this piece (“Every Story Has a Beginning”), a boy in pajamas watches a tableau of monsters from across a barren landscape. A little girl with a red balloon stares back at him as one creature, with its back turned, holds her hand. The piece captures a loss of innocence—a nightmare shrouding an even more vicious reality.
“I try to walk a line between a children’s book illustration, so even though the subject matter might be unpleasant, it still has a childlike quality, so it’s not as unpleasant as it could be if I did it graphically,” Miller says.
Miller himself has written three children’s books and is in the midst of illustrating the final two. He admires the capacity of children’s books to convey profound messages to both children and their parents.
“Any good children’s book isn’t just for children,” Miller says. “When I think of great children’s books, I think of The Little Prince, which I still read. Writing a children’s book, you have to be succinct: You have to nail something esoteric or emotional in a limited amount of time, and it’s the combination of the words and the art that really makes it powerful.”
Though he will eventually seek a publisher for these stories, he also plans on unveiling the accompanying illustrations in their original, painting-sized format during a solo show.
The gallery’s opening reception, however, belongs to Keith Marlowe, whose photographs of rock bands and industrial decline have featured in SPIN and LIFE, respectively. Rotten Meat co-owner John Kalman will perform the evening’s post-rock, loop-driven soundtrack. In accordance with the art exhibition opening reception template, patrons may help themselves to wine and cheese while they view the works on display. Miller anticipates a relaxed atmosphere, perfect for the subtle contemplation that art invokes.
“I think real art should be a narrative where the viewer can look at something and fill in the blanks,” Miller says. “This is one of the purest forms of expression left. You and a stranger share something without words, and that’s a really powerful moment.”
For more on Rotten Meat Gallery, contact rottenmeatgallery@gmail.com and/or visit the gallery’s Facebook page.
Isaac Mell grew up in South Euclid, OH and attended American Jewish University in Los Angeles. He welcomes conversations with potential employers, collaborators and friends.
Cleveland, OH 44103
One Response to “Rotten Meat Gallery: Raw Art and Honesty”
John Ettorre
Nice piece, nicely executed.