Shantel Miller’s figurative paintings create visual languages to describe lived and imagined experiences beyond her inner world. Using a collage-like approach to image-making, Miller represents the body as a site for reflecting on broader social realities as she pulls from personal experiences of isolation, suffering, surrender, joy, endurance, and transformation. At the core of her practice lies a questioning of representational models of meaning that influence perception and identity, with a focus on ideas relevant to Black existentialism and spirituality. Her multidisciplinary practice oscillates between painting, drawing, photography, and printmaking and is deeply rooted in oppositional thinking and research. What arises is uncommon imagery sometimes depicted with photographic precision, unique perspectives, and bold colors to evoke connectedness and relationship with oneself and others. Ranging in scale from small to large, each painting reads allegorically through a language of symbolism, reinforcing human resilience and life beyond death.