MILES REGIS

b. 1967 San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago

In the life and studio of LA-based, Trinidad-born artist Miles Regis, every action is an opportunity for creative self-expression. Prolific in both fine art and fashion design, Regis freely swaps the materials and languages of each to enrich the other. His large-scale mixed media paintings on canvas and linen incorporate dimensional collage elements of denim, buttons, leather, printed matter, sequins, and patches of eclectically sourced found textiles along with his dexterous, gestural, richly hued abstract and figurative painting techniques. Aggressively hopeful and humanistic, Regis embraces a storytelling stance in his stylized renditions of fundamental scenes of love, loss, freedom, survival, activism, and living history.

Tapping into the emotional experiences of exotic cultures around the world and presenting them in ways that are relevant to today’s modernized societies, Regis favors the simplicity of black and white structure, starkly juxtaposed with the complex dimensions of color; recurring motifs include his use of eyes, encouraging the viewer to look deeper. His paintings are often layered with vibrant hues, powerful imagery, text, abstract brush strokes, and purposeful objects the same eye-catching iconography and palette which also appear in his original wearable art. Hand-painted by the artist, each garment highlights a delicately detailed working of both surface and narrative, in the same process that expresses the personal and collective mythologies enshrined in his art works.

During the summer of 2017 Regis made his first foray into the word of artisanal perfume, creating an original series of signature scents developed during a month-long art-and-fashion residency at LA’s Institute for Art and Olfaction. Regis has also been delving into new technologies as an early adopter of the emerging realm of Virtual Reality as a fine art application. One of the main elements in constructing inter dimensional visual worlds based on his art is a painstaking process building the compositional structure layer by layer -- a technique ideally suited to Regis’ established language of painting. The results, which he sometimes pairs with his own original auric electronic beats, are kinetic, vibrating, seductive travels in AbEx hyperspace, and all on their own make the case for VR as a proper tool for all kinds of artists.

Regis and his art was featured in a Ford F-150 Truck national TV commercial in January 2021 and his 15 foot painted art sculpture is now in the permanent collection of the Ford Motor company.

Regis is in the permanent collection of Intel Corporation, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, California African American Museum, PAMA in Canada and Senegal's La Musee Borindar; and has appeared in association with CNN, Art Basel Miami, The Coachella Music and Art Festival, CCH Pounder, Million Dollar Listing, Volcom, American Rag Cie, Art For Amnesty, Campaign for Black Male Achievement, Manifest Justice, Adobe, and Tonny Sorenson. Regis has exhibited at Art Basel Miami and The Coachella Arts And Music Festival and has been featured on CNN, Forbes Magazine, The Huffington Post, Extra TV and Ebony Magazine.

MY BEAUTIFUL WOMEN

“This new ‘My Beautiful Women’ series is a celebration of feminine influences in my life. It is a celebration of all the women and female presence in my life. The portraits are an acknowledgement of the beauty and grace of the maternal forces I have been privileged to experience in the past, present and speaks of future hope. It is a conversation about past, with my African and East Indian ancestors. My present, American family life experiences and a future global understanding of the role of the feminine.

These new paintings seek to capture the cultural and ancestral beauty experienced from my past life living in Trinidad, to my current American lifestyle living in midst of a glossy, glitter filled façade that is the beauty of Hollywood. A challenging of many past established beauty standards in a sense.

It is my hope that the viewer feels the many moods of love I have experienced over the years, from the never-ending devotion and love I continue to feel from my 85-year-old mother who still lives in Trinidad, to the warm and nurturing energy of love and compassion my children and I feel from my wife. Continuing the love energy flow with the memory of the magical and mythical maternal instincts present with both of my grandmothers always celebrating their African and Indian roots respectively, to my present with the keen maternal instincts present in my 18-year-old daughter, as bookends to the story.

Each painting highlights a delicately detailed working of both surface and narrative, in the same process that expresses the personal and collective mythologies enshrined in my art works, recalling the status-quo blasting majesty of the ‘Black is Beautiful’ moment in America.” Miles Regis

Miles Regis is represented internationally by Cynthia Corbett Gallery.

EXPO Chicago 2024: Miles Regis