Native New Yorker Cheryl Miller, was born and raised in South Jamaica, Queens. She attended New York City Public Schools and completed undergraduate work in Sociology/Psychology at Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, North Carolina. She also completed graduate work in the School of Architecture, Department of City and Regional Planning at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. She is a self-taught photographer.
Miller was asked to exhibit her work for the first time in 1988. Since then her work has been shown in numerous galleries and museums. Working primarily in natural light, she strives to capture/create the visual simplicity of her subjects by emphasizing highlights and shadows. She studies the human condition from a visual perspective and has developed a powerful eye for images that display the true kaleidoscope of experiences in African American culture. In 1998, she made her curatorial debut at the Rush Fine Arts Gallery in New York, NY. The exhibition was entitled Gyration, a photographic tribute to dance by Sistagraphy, an organization of women photographers from around the country.
Her images have been published in Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers, FREEDOM: A Photographic History of the African American Struggle, Reflections In Black- A History of Black Photographers 1840-Present, A History of New York In Images – CITYSCAPES, Black: A Celebration of A Culture, Long Shot, and Black New York Photographers of the 20th Century. She is in the private collections of Gordon parks, Rita Moreno, Russell Simmons, and Jheryl Busby, to name a few. Her work has been the subject of several newspaper and magazine articles.Miller’s images can also be found in the permanent collection of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
In addition, she was an adjunct lecturer at The Tisch Department of Photography and Imaging at New York University in New York,The City University of New York (York College) and taught photography and art in New York City’s public school system.
Currently, Miller is working on a book project, If We Stand Tall…Recollections of Spirits Past, (KMW Studio Publishing), a study of a community, all communities, specifically her community- Jamaica, New York. A deeply moving memoir that captures the very essence of life, in a celebration of our existence, and our connection to all others. Miller has also been invited to participate in Beacon Gallery’s (Boston) Artist In Residence Program in July 2023.
