Photographer Stuart Miller is no stranger to the advertising world. Perhaps it is his experience working in the highly manipulated realm of advertising photography that has provoked his latest series, Gold, an attack on the deceitful mechanisms that fuel consumerism.
An acerbic jab at the advertising world, Gold juxtaposes reality with fantasy, combining "the rawness of humanity with the excess of the manufactured world". Using liquid gold as a symbol of misrepresentation and trickery, he coats common objects as well as the human form in gold, composing surreal photographs that juxtapose the artificial with the natural.
"The everyday smothering of who is beautiful, what to consume and what should be considered valuable convinces people who in this world has privilege, who holds power and who does not," his exhibition statement reads.
Miller works across art photography and documentary as well as advertising and has done advertising photography for companies such as Mercedes-Benz, Chanel and McDonald's. His art photography is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) & Queensland Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA).
Gold is on at Black Eye Gallery, Sydney until October 9, 2016.