![\"_DSC0621](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/DSC0621-resized.jpg\")
Miles McMillan in his studio, photography by Matthew Pandolfe<\/p>\n Miles McMillan in his studio, photography by Matthew Pandolfe<\/p>\n
The intersection of\u00a0art\u00a0and\u00a0fashion has\u00a0inspired a\u00a0timeless love affair.\u00a0Artists, muses and designers meet and inspire one another to create and explore their mediums,\u00a0pushing\u00a0boundaries and creating innovative new\u00a0movements. In 1987 a young Jean Michel Basquiat walked the Comme des Gar\u00e7ons Spring\/Summer collection runway donned in a typical Eighties double-breasted power suit, grey of course. By doing this Rei Kawakubo sent one message to the audience: the artist is the new muse and sex symbol.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In more recent years Robert Longo\u2019s, \u201cMen Trapped in Ice\u201d was re-interpreted for Bottega Veneta\u2019s Autumn\/Winter 2010 ad campaign. This past January the designer, Helmut Lang,\u00a0revealed his first solo art show at New York\u2019s Sperone Westwater,\u00a0while\u00a0Raf Simon’s recent collaboration with Ruby Sterling had both the fashion and art world clamoring\u00a0to wear art as fashion.\u00a0And photographers such as Nan Goldin and Nobuyoshi Araki have all lent their vision to luxury labels.<\/p>\n
![\"_DSC0662](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/DSC0662-copy.jpg\")
Miles McMillan in his studio, photography by Matthew Pandolfe<\/p>\n
We are now looking at a generation that sees art and fashion merging with the change of every season; and Miles McMillan\u00a0springs from this nexus. McMillan is a NYU Fine Arts graduate, but also a sought after male model. Hailing from La Jolla, California, his life\u2019s inspired by the\u00a0broad\u00a0beaches,\u00a0towering\u00a0palm trees, sun-kissed faces and coastal architecture. His Jim Morrison appeal mixed with 1990s Viper Room club kid vibe has graced the cover of Bazaar Man and Dior ads. In his art McMillan explores the primal and natural expressions of human sexuality and\u00a0desire.\u00a0His effortless mix of hyper-masculine erotic male portraiture and the femininity of flowers also alludes to his own understanding of androgyny, which he has used in both his painting and modelling career.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sleek had the pleasure to sit down with Miles at his studio in\u00a0SoHo, NYC and discuss mermaids, objectifying men and how modelling has influenced his art.<\/p>\n
![\"Miles](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/150319_11_054.jpg\")
Photography by Sebastian Faena<\/p>\n
When did you first become interested in the arts? <\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve always had a strong passion for art and nature. One of my earliest memories was being four years old and going up to my art teacher and asking her if she would teach me how to draw a mermaid. Creating and thinking about art has always been a part of who I am. I stem from a very creative family. My grandmother is a folk artist of sorts, her claim to fame is these wooden hearts that she makes with her ban saw in the back of her barn, she’s still making them at 86. My parents always pushed me to do things I have a passion for. At a very young age I started taking art classes, which led to taking private art lessons and even a stint at an art summer camp.<\/p>\n Who are some of your art inspirations today?<\/strong><\/p>\n Lucien Freud, Jack Pierson, Eva Hesse, Louise Bourgeois, Terry Winters. Recently, I’ve been obsessed with Jonas Wood. A few months ago while in Milan I visited the Taschen Bookstore where Wood did these terrazzo floors with brass inlay depicting the flora of California.\u00a0Terazzo has a very special place in my heart and his nature-based subject matter reminded me of home. I was beyond blown away by the entirety of the installation. I\u2019m jealous of his work, but in the best way.<\/p>\n \u00a0You received your bachelors of fine arts from NYU Steinhardt. What professors and classes helped you improve your art practice? <\/strong><\/p>\n Maureen Gallace was great in showing me how to care about my art and how to carry myself when talking about it and while creating it. She also taught a class with Jack Pierson, who is one of the most amazing artists that I\u2019ve been so lucky to have not only been educated by, but photographed by as well. Jack and I are still in contact with each other, he is such an inspiration to me.<\/p>\n How did you transfer from art to modelling? Was it difficult to go from the creator of images to being used as the subject of other people\u2019s creations?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think it was the summer of my junior year at NYU that a photographer approached me outside of a dingy music venue in the Lower East Side. I negotiated my rate for the job by myself and got more than their set rate. Back then I was painting women who were in seductively reclined poses and I would crop off their limbs. In the middle of my senior year I got pick up by an agency and started trying it out. And once I became someone who was the subject of an image I turned inward to examine myself as the subject in my own work, resulting in a series of nude self-portraits. After that series of work, I became much more influenced by photographs, the way in which light reflects onto skin and other male forms.<\/p>\n What are the concepts in your work?<\/strong><\/p>\n You could say my art is about objectifying men or women but I think I work with themes of high and low [culture] and lust. Taking something cheap and dirty and remaking it with oil paints, taking a subject are usually looked down upon and presenting it in a new elevated state. <\/strong>Taking a hyper-masculine subject and offsetting with a delicate subject. My main subject material comes form pornographic images. I get ideas from renaissance and religious paintings, primitive art, contemporary portrait painters, nature and really everywhere I travel to. <\/strong>It\u2019s about the portrait. When you see my portraits its cropped in a way any portrait is, but there\u2019s something more to that image, something deeper, something darker, and I think the viewer can pick up on that.<\/p>\n How do you balance modelling and your studio practice? <\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s fucking hard I\u2019ll tell you that much! I always travel with a sketchbook and always some sort of note pad and pencils. I try to go to museums and galleries, but sometimes it\u2019s just a walk in a neighborhood that inspires me.<\/p>\n Tell me about your current series of work?<\/strong><\/p>\n I see my current work as a transition series. I needed to break myself and work solely on instincts. If I think it\u2019s enough, it\u2019s done. I start my process by researching images, I get them from porn websites or getting lost in Tumblr. For this last series I framed the guys with elements of nature. I just came back from a very profound and deep trip to the jungle in Peru and the plants had a huge effect on me. They found their way into these paintings as shapes and colors to counteract the stylised 2015 internet culture of pornographic images I work with. You know, plants have always been important to me, my child hood home is filled with plants and I spent a lot of time in Hawaii growing up and still do. Being surrounded by a Can you talk about your process and how it has developed? <\/strong><\/p>\n It varies. I mostly work with oils on either canvas or wood. I was taught a very old school version of working with oils. I start with covering the canvas in a raw umber ground and then use the same colour to find the lines of the subject I\u2019m painting. Then I find the shadows and middle tones and finally put in the highlights with white. Then I\u2019ll let that dry and then go over it with color. These days my painting style is more fluid and natural.<\/p>\n Who would you like to collaborate with as an artist?<\/strong><\/p>\n A couple months ago I saw Jonas Wood and Shio Kusaka\u2019s collaborative show at Karma Gallery in New York, which blew me away. I guess I’ve never thought about who I\u2019d want to collaborate with, but it would be great to work on a project with Jack Pierson. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n Interview by Jessica Steller<\/strong><\/p>\n More Art: Legs Up in the Air: Isabelle Wenzel Presents at Unseen<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n![\"Miles](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/150319_01_053.jpg\")
Miles McMillan in Dries Van Noten, photography by Sebastian Faena<\/p>\n![\"Miles](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/DSC0874-copy.jpg\")
Miles McMillan in his studio, photography by Matthew Pandolfe<\/p>\n
\nll those tropical plants really makes me happy. They are a part of who I am they represent so much to me, life, death, and everything in the middle.<\/p>\n![\"150319_02_071\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/150319_02_071.jpg\")
Miles McMillan in Chanel, photography by Sebastian Faena<\/p>\n