EDUCATION

Serena Mitnik-Miller (b. 1981, Massachusetts)

Lives and works in Los Angeles, California

Serena Mitnik-Miller is a painter whose work explores the balance between repetition and variation, structure and spontaneity. Working in watercolor on paper, she creates layered compositions through hand-drawn lines, geometric forms, and transparent washes. Each painting is built slowly, through a process that is both intuitive and precise—where gesture, rhythm, and material guide the outcome. What results is a visual language that feels at once methodical and formal yet deeply personal and open.

Her practice has developed over years of focused work shaped by both place and process. Time in the Bay Area laid the foundation for a material-led, rhythm-driven approach that continues to define her work. Now based in the mountains of Los Angeles near the Pacific, she also spends significant time in the desert, she draws from the light, stillness, and openness found in both settings. These qualities surface through the work in quiet ways, as spatial and emotional cues—quietly embedded in the balance, structure, movement, and tone of the work.

Mitnik-Miller’s paintings sit within a West Coast lineage that includes the reductive clarity of minimalism and the perceptual sensitivity of the Light and Space movement. Her work resists spectacle, inviting instead a slower, more sustained kind of looking. Each composition is shaped entirely by hand, built through repetition and revision. The simplicity of form belies the complexity of its making—a process rooted in attention, restraint, and the material intelligence of working analog.

Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tokyo, and other international venues, and is included in the U.S. Department of State’s Art in Embassies program. She received her B.A. in Photography and Printmaking from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

2008

BA, Photography and Printmaking, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA
Irwin Scholar, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA

COLLECTIONS

Fidelity Investment Corporate Contemporary Art Collection, Boston, MA
Art in Embassies Program, U.S. Department of State
Private collections throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Australia

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023
2021
2019

2018

2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2010
2009
2008
2007

JOURNEY, Sarah Shepard Gallery, Larkspur, CA
M A N I F E S T I N G, Sarah Shepard Gallery, Larkspur, CAIntertwined alongside Stephen Ormandy, Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, NY

C A N Y O N, Chandran Gallery, San Francisco, CA

W I L D, Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, NY
W I L D, Park Life Gallery, San Francisco, CA
S W I R L, Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, NY
S W I R L, Park Life Gallery, San Francisco, CA
INBETWEEN, Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, NY
F O U N D, Beach Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
F O U N D, Art Park Gallery, Bryon Bay, NSW Australia
Watercolors, SFMOMA Artists Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Blocked, Four Barrel Art Series, San Francisco, CA
Serena Mitnik-Miller - Photographs, Stripe, Santa Cruz, CA
Out To Sea, Mollusk Surf Shop Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Quiver: a Collection of Photographs, Mollusk Surf Shop, Venice, CA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2024


2019

2015

2014
2013



2012


2011

2010

2009






2008

SONDER, Indoek Gallery Ventura CA
Return to Focus, Sarah Shepard Gallery, Larkspur, CA
Gather, SEED Gallery, San Francisco, CA
In Parallel: Windy Chien & Serena Mitnik-Miller, Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA

Pattern ::::: Chaos at Cinders Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Art on Paper with Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, NY
Your Favorite Artist's Favorite Artist at Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, NY
Miami Project Art Fair with Joshua Liner Gallery, Miami, FL
Folklore, Joshua Liner Gallery, New York, NY
Needles & Pens, Needles & Pens Gallery, San Francisco, CA
The Objects Show, R 20th Century, New York, NY
Poster Show, Mollusk Surf Shop Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Dreamers, Ron Herman Sendagaya, Tokyo, Japan
The Objects Show, R 20th Century, New York, NY
Sunset Circles, POP Gallery, Culver City, CA
Makers Market, Curated by The Noguchi Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY
21Pop, curated by Stanlee Gatti, SF20: San Francisco 20th Century Modernism, Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA
Where Oceans Converge, Long Beach Island Foundation Gallery, LBI, NJ
Hello Neighbor, Carville Annex, San Francisco, CA
Ocean + Beach, Needles & Pens Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Sea Life, Surf Indian Gallery, Pacific Beach, CA
Dear & Yonder, traveling Art Show to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Vancouver
Pipeline, SFMOMA Artists Gallery, San Francisco, CA
YAR: art stuff derived from the surf film The Present, Mollusk Surf Shop Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Mollusk, Space 15 Twenty, Los Angeles, California
Mollusk Family Poster Show, Mollusk Surf Shop Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Dear & Yonder, New Image Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Outerlands Art Auction, Mollusk Surf Shop Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Irwin Scholar Exhibition, Sesnon Gallery, University of California Santa Cruz, CA
The Happening: traveling exhibition to Sydney, Tokyo, London, Cornwall, New York and San Francisco