Origins

A Foundation in the Classical Tradition

Before he made a single dimensional work, JD Miller spent years studying the classical principles of painting under the American artist Liz Richardson. Richardson had devoted her life to the masters of the nineteenth century, and to Cezanne above all. Through academic study and private mentorship, she gave Miller the foundations that would later carry his work: the Golden Mean, color relationships, geometric perspective, compositional structure, the repetition of shape, and the movement of color across a canvas.

She taught that great art is never an accident. Enduring work, she believed, is built on universal principles that outlast fashion and preference. That conviction became the spine of Miller's practice.

“It is no accident that certain paintings wind up in museums.”

Liz Richardson, to her students

Richardson taught technique as discipline. She showed Miller how to use the painting knife, and how oil paint could hold a richness and vibrancy that excessive mixing destroys. She warned against what she called “shallow color,” urging painters to protect the energy of a pigment before it ever reached the canvas. Years later, that lesson would shape the dense, textured, dimensional surfaces that define Reflectionism.

From the Golden Mean to the Phi Points

Among the principles Richardson pressed hardest was the Golden Mean. Her teaching sent Miller into the mathematics behind classical composition, and to the study of Phi, the Golden Number. From that work he developed the idea he calls the Phi Points: the four places on a rectangular canvas where the Golden Mean divisions intersect. He regards them as the most powerful compositional positions in a painting, and he anchors his major passages of interest around them.

The Revelation

For a full year, Miller studied Richardson's methods before he was given his first private lesson. Watching her paint, he has said, was “a revelation,” the moment abstract principle became living practice. He still owns the painting Richardson made that day, and the painting he made immediately after: a record of knowledge passing from one hand to the next.

Richardson came to regard Miller as her most important pupil. She called him, simply, “her boy.” She was known for a sharp wit and no patience for pretension, and she demanded seriousness from everyone she taught. Years later she stood before one of Miller's first sculptural, three-dimensional oil works, the earliest visible form of what would become Reflectionism, laughed, and said five words.

Dallas, 1998. Three years before the movement had a name.

The First Lesson

In 1998, JD Miller sought out Liz Richardson, an 88-year-old master colorist from Dallas and a member of the Royal Academy of London, renowned for her Expressionistic palette knife technique. Until he met her, Miller had never seen a painting knife. After six months in her weekly lecture series, she granted him his first private lesson. What happened that day, and that night, set the course for everything that would become Reflectionism.

“I was hungry, hungry to actually watch and learn from a master Impressionist-Expressionist painter and become their student and protege. I wanted to see how they physically moved the paint, how they mixed their colors and how they designed their pictures. I knew my destiny was to paint, and therefore I chose to learn and understand all that had come before in order to have the foundation to attempt something new. I put the thought into the universe and the answer arrived quickly in the frail but feisty body of an 88-year-old firecracker from Dallas, Texas by the name of Liz Richardson.

She was a member of The Royal Academy of London, a master colorist, and a master of Expressionistic palette knife techniques. Until I met her I had never seen a painting knife. I didn't even know there were special knives for painting, as I was still using the same old crusty mixing knife. When I got her number and called, she grilled me for 30 minutes to determine if I was worthy, or not. Not one to mince words, she wanted to know if I had color and composition training and whether I was dedicated, because if not, she had no time to waste on people who would squander her time and knowledge. I told her I had college training, none in color and composition, but that I painted every day and I would be her most diligent student.

She agreed to let me attend her weekly lecture series, in which she would explain why the paintings in the museums were there and what it took to make work of that caliber. After roughly six months of attending weekly class, she agreed to my first private lesson. I was finally going to sit and watch the master paint. I had seen her do a few minor demonstrations in class but nothing like that day. She told me to choose a subject, so I reminded her of a recollection she had shared in class earlier that week, a patch of glowing golden aspens she had seen and how gorgeous the color was. I said, how about that? And that was it. For four hours she painted, talking to me about what she was thinking and how she was making her thoughts come alive on the canvas. It was as if the clouds of heaven opened and down rained the knowledge of painting history.

That night I went home and painted Costa Rica Red Roof with the power of having watched firsthand what 88 years of love, experience and genius can create. I love Liz and treasure the gifts she gave me. She is no longer with us, but her spirit lives in every painting I create.”

JD Miller

“Golden Aspen on a Summer Day”

Liz Richardson, 1998. Painted during JD Miller's first private lesson.

“Costa Rica Red Roof”

JD Miller, 1998. Painted that same night.

The lesson and the response. Two canvases, one day, 1998.

“I just want to lick it.”

Liz Richardson, before an early dimensional work

The Lineage

Reflectionism did not appear from nowhere. It descends through a chain of influence that runs from the great masters, through Cezanne and the nineteenth-century tradition, through Liz Richardson, to JD Miller, and onward, through the artists he has mentored, to the movement shown today.

Richardson taught the grammar of painting. Reflectionism is the language that grew from it.

Mentorship as Principle

What Miller received, he chose to pass on. The first artist he formally mentored in his dimensional oil technique was Carrie Cameron. In time he introduced her to Richardson, closing the circle between generations. That instinct, the choice to share the discovery rather than guard it, is not incidental to Reflectionism. It is one of its defining commitments. Eight artists have now trained under Miller. The movement is the proof that a living tradition is still being handed forward.

The Breakthrough

Building on this classical foundation, Miller began applying oil paint in increasingly dimensional ways, until the surface itself became sculptural. In 2001, in Dallas, that work became a movement. Reflectionism was born from the grammar Richardson taught and the discovery Miller made his own.

From Origins to Exhibition

The lineage continues. September 12, 2026 at Samuel Lynne Galleries, Dallas.

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