Miles Van Rensselaer has always been fascinated with archaic cultures.  “I find myself consistently turning away from ever-looming modernity, turning back to societies unconcerned with material things.” 

Van Rensselaer graduated from Kenyon College, OH, in 1996 (Sculpture/English) and studied mask making and woodcarving with Javanese, Balinese and Papuan masters through CIEE New York.  He has been making and experimenting with a variety of mediums since he was a child, using anything from glass and crystal to bronze and iron, from gold and silver to tooth and bone, from steel, copper, and lead to wood, clay, feathers and hair. Van Rensselaer’s work is an homage to archaic cultures and their vanishing ways of life, and a translation of their technique, imagery, and idea of primitive art into modern Western materials.  Van Rensselaer strives to reach others as these archaic cultures have indelibly reached him: beyond the spoken and written word.

http://www.vanren.com/