BJM

BIO

Billy Joe Miller is an interdisciplinary artist working across mixed media, sculpture, installation, and site-responsive public projects. His practice centers on the transformation of space—reworking architecture, everyday objects, and landscapes to generate new forms of gathering and spatial encounter. Through shifts in structure, material, and scale, his work reimagines familiar environments, opening them to new uses, meanings, and relationships.

Ideas of sanctuary and collective space run throughout Miller’s work. His experiences working in hospice and healthcare settings, alongside his own diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in 2010, sparked an interest in bridging healthcare and arts and in recognizing aesthetics as an essential component of healing environments. These experiences inform his commitment to accessibility and to creating restorative spaces within civic and public contexts.

Originally from San Diego, California, Miller now lives in the East Mountains of Albuquerque, New Mexico. His work has been supported by New Mexico Arts; Public Art Urban Enhancement ABQ; the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Meow Wolf; Bridge Projects; The Speranza Foundation; the City of Palm Desert; the City of Fraser; Green Box Arts; Artists at Work: Borderlands; and the National Endowment for the Arts.

COMMISSIONS AND PUBLIC PROJECTS

2026 Large-scale installation at Green Box Arts, Green Mountain Falls, CO

2026 The City of Albuquerque has acquired a New Version of Morning Glory for the coming

International District Library Park. BJM has also worked on a 2025 extensive, community engaged,

public art design project for the ID Park including Friends of the Orphan Signs and other local partners,

Albuquerque, NM

2025 What is the Light New Mexico Junior College, Hobbs, NM

2025 Moving Window, at UNM Hospital, public art for healthcare centers, Albuquerque, NM

2024 Telenatural, City of Fraser, Fraser, CO

2024 Sunray Cat, UCC at University of Texas, Austin, TX

2023 Balloon Eclipse, Anderson Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon

Museum for Balloon Fiesta, Albuquerque, NM

2023 Under the Rainbow, OneBeat, international music event, Albuquerque, NM

2022 Balloon Top, SOMOS Dreamglow, Albuquerque, NM

2021 Charrette for Roundabouts, public art exhibition, FAC Art Center,

Frederick, MD

2021 Co-designer, City of Albuquerque, International District Library Ground

Making event and installation

2020 Palm Desert Window, public art commission, Paseo,

Palm Desert, CA

2020 Vitrail, public art commission, Art on the Streets,

Colorado Springs, CO

2019 Independent consultant, Surroundings Studio, International District,

Albuquerque, NM

2019 Iris and South San Mateo Pop Up Park, community-engaged public art

commission, Artful Life, Rocky Mountain Youth Core, and The Nature

Conservancy, Albuquerque, NM

2019 Memorials to the genii loci: Middle Rio Grande Basin, land art installation,

Art Park 21, Albuquerque, NM

2019 Companion Star, public art installation, SOMOS arts festival with Fuego,

Albuquerque, NM

2017 Morning Glory, community-engaged public art commission, Stories of

Route 66: International District, Albuquerque, NM

2017 Lo Lo, multi-media collaborative installation and performance, Rio

Grande Community Farm, Albuquerque, NM

2016 CC. T.I.M.E., commissioned outdoor installation, Art in Public Places, El

Malpais National Monument Visitor Center, Grants, NM

2014 You are the Doorway, commissioned installations, OneBeat ABQ,

Albuquerque Railyards and 516 Arts, Albuquerque, NM (curator)

AWARDS RECOGNITION

2024  Rancho Gateway, one of three finalist selections, public art commission for Las Vegas Medical District.

2023/2024 Fulcrum Fund Grant Recipient for public art in healthcare sites

2023 Artists at Work, a one-year salaried residency

2022-2025 Placemaking Project, Brian Head Town Council, Brian Head, UT

2022 Speranza Foundation, Lincoln City Fellowship, CA

RESIDENCIES

2025 Green Box Arts, Green Mountain Falls, CO

2023 Food Waste Residency, Sandia Park, NM

2019 StudioWorks Residency, Eastport, ME

2018 Teton Artlab, Jackson, WY

2017 Tidelines Journey Residency, Island Institute, Sitka, AK

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023 Palimpsest, Cabra, Sandia Park, NM

2022 Controlled Burn, La Chancla, Albuquerque, NM

2019 Free Will 200th, Tides Institute and Museum of Art, Eastport, ME

2018 VVVV, Teton Artlab, Jackson, WY

2015 Rays, with Meow Wolf and Life Songs, Santa Fe, NM

2013 Revival, The Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, NM

2012 Wake, 5G North Gallery, Albuquerque, NM

2010 Tomorrow is Spring, The T an, Albuquerque, NM

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2023 Sculpture Symposium at Texas  Tech, Lubbock, TX

2022 A Companion for Departure, with Bethany Springer, Sanitary Tortilla

Factory, Albuquerque, NM

2020 To Bough and to Bend, Bridge Projects, Los Angeles, CA

2019 Currency: What do you value? Debtfair with 516 Arts, Albuquerque, NM

2016 At Home In The World - Writha, 516 Arts, Albuquerque, NM

2013 Arts and Nature Festival, Seattle, WA

2012 Far Far Near, Adobe Books Backroom Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2011 High and Dry, South Broadway Cultural Center, Albuquerque, NM

COLLECTIONS

New Mexico Junior College, Hobbs, NM

City of Fraser, CO

UCC/University of Texas Austin

Albuquerque Public Art Collection

New Mexico Bernalillo County Public Art Collection

Warner Graves, Palm Desert, CA

EDUCATION

2007–2013 University of New Mexico, studio art, independent studies and mentorship with Patrick Manning and Adrienne Salinger

1996–1998 Palomar Junior College, studio art, mentorship with William Feeney

ARTIST STATEMENT

I am an interdisciplinary artist working across mixed media, sculpture, installation, and site-responsive public projects. My practice centers on the transformation of space as a form of sanctuary—reworking architecture, everyday objects, and landscapes to generate new forms of gathering, spatial encounter, and collective refuge. Through shifts in structure, material, and scale, I reimagine familiar environments, opening them to new uses, meanings, and relationships.

Ideas of sanctuary and collective space run throughout my work. My experiences working in hospice and healthcare settings, alongside my 2010 diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, sparked an interest in bridging healthcare and the arts and in recognizing aesthetics as an essential component of healing environments. I am also influenced by growing up in religious spaces and by the writings of Bayo Akomolafe, whose reflections on sanctuary as a relational practice and as a space of emergence have shaped how I think about environments of care and refuge. These ideas inform my commitment to accessibility and to creating restorative, inclusive spaces within civic and public contexts.

I am interested in how the built environment shapes our perception of light, color, and nature. I make publicly accessible, multi-sensory installations that employ architectural and spatial elements to create contemplative environments shaped by light, place, and form, inviting reflection and shared experience.

Studio practices such as drawing, painting, and photography inform this work: through drawing I reveal light, and through photography I search for it. Sculptural forms often become vessels for light and color—structures that hold and reflect it. I am drawn to architectural scale, creating immersive environments where light, color, and form can be experienced somatically, while also finding meaning in smaller works that operate through quieter gestures.

Most of my installations are developed in response to specific sites—parks, interior spaces, civic architecture, or even the orientation of a particular window. I often seek to bring the outside in and the inside out, creating environments that blur boundaries between built and natural worlds.

This perspective continues to guide my work in parks, community centers, transportation corridors, and healthcare settings. Collaborative public projects—such as Morning Glory and other initiatives developed with residents in Albuquerque’s International District—have shown me how art can foster meaningful connections between people and place. Through these projects, I seek to create spaces that welcome people of all ages, cultures, and abilities, supporting shared experiences and creative participation within the environments we inhabit together.