Viewing Room Main Site
Skip to content

Lately I have been thinking about the body, about our physical and emotional bounds, and the thresholds we breach, transcend, and transform over our lives. As with all of my work, the elusive language of the body and the psyche are woven together with the immensity of life beyond our sensory perception or logical reasoning. I think of my paintings as pinpricks of information alluding to a larger whole that we can only guess at.

Dualities are a constant fascination of mine. For this exhibition, captivity and release take center stage; we oscillate between the necessities of possessiveness and openness in every part of life. We expand our threshold for growth and experience by making deep commitments to values, people, futures, and yet simultaneously, life and self are constantly evolving; we cannot hold onto things forever for fear of loss and unknowns. There is a balancing act in there that no manual can help with, even intuition can get it wrong. It seems we are destined to trip up in this dance, and that is part of the whole performance.

In a world where ideals and absolutes are delivered to us daily through devices, we barely control, what does it look like to surrender to imperfection, embrace discordance and ephemerality, or center our animal experience once again. There is certainly much discomfort there. In Love Story I am evoking a scene that takes place in a remote setting. The figures there are poised for pleasure or pain, movement, or stasis. It’s hard to determine. Domesticity mingles with wildness, simplicity with complexity, and through it, the body sits in the balance.

A love story is a potent ideal. We look for an answer to ourselves, something through which we ascend - or escape - our physical bounds. Yet despite this hopeful belief, we know that purity can shatter, giving way to less transcendent feelings. It seems clear to me that there is little difference between reality and fantasy, memory and imagination, and a story can evolve in meaning continually over time. Using the body as the container for this mutability, Love Story is a place where a gesture, a stance, a look, a possession, becomes the whole world, if just for a moment, before shifting again. – Mia Middleton, 2023

About the Artist
Mia Middleton (b. 1988) is a Sydney-based artist whose pictorial works explore interiority, memory, and evocation. Middleton’s small-scale paintings capture a tension and threshold between conscious and subconscious, desire and aversion, reality, and fantasy. In these intimate freeze-frames, ephemeral moments are stripped of their context and suspended in time, intimating a narrative without creating one and inviting viewers into a psychological framework of uncertainty and discovery. Mia Middleton has exhibited widely internationally. This is her first exhibition with Roberts Projects.

For additional information, please contact Camille Weiner: 323.549.0223 and camille@robertsprojectsla.com

For press inquiries, please contact Hannah Gottlieb-Graham, ALMA Communications hannah@almacommunications.co

Roberts Projects New Location
442 South La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90036
Roberts Projects is located in the Mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles, two blocks north of Wilshire Boulevard.
A private parking lot is adjacent to the building.

Mia Middleton Above the Maze, 2023

Mia Middleton
Above the Maze, 2023
Oil on cotton
7.87 x 7.87 in (20 x 20 cm)

Mia Middleton Saturday, 2023

Mia Middleton
Saturday, 2023
Oil on cotton
7.87 x 7.87 in (20 x 20 cm)

Mia Middleton Forest (Hiding), 2023

Mia Middleton
Forest (Hiding), 2023
Oil on cotton
7.87 x 7.87 in (20 x 20 cm)

Mia Middleton Dreamer, 2023

Mia Middleton
Dreamer, 2023
Oil on cotton
7.87 x 7.87 in (20 x 20 cm)

Mia Middleton Smoker, 2023

Mia Middleton
Smoker, 2023
Oil on cotton
9.84 x 7.87 in (25 x 20 cm)

Mia Middleton Key, 2023

Mia Middleton
Key, 2023
Oil on cotton
23.62 x 19.69 in (60 x 50 cm

Mia Middleton Blind, 2023

Mia Middleton
Blind, 2023
Oil on cotton
15.75 x 15.75 in (40 x 40 cm)

Mia Middleton Kitchen, 2023

Mia Middleton
Kitchen, 2023
Oil on cotton
7.87 x 7.87 in (20 x 20 cm)

Mia Middleton Quiet, 2023

Mia Middleton
Quiet, 2023
Oil on cotton
7.87 x 7.87 in (20 x 20 cm)

Mia Middleton Autumn, 2023

Mia Middleton
Autumn, 2023
Oil on cotton
11.81 x 11.81 in (30 x 30 cm)

Mia Middleton Note, 2023

Mia Middleton
Note, 2023
Oil on cotton
15.75 x 15.75 in (40 x 40 cm)

Mia Middleton Cover IV, 2023

Mia Middleton
Cover IV, 2023
Oil on cotton
9.84 x 7.87 in (25 x 20 cm)

Mia Middleton Boy with Centipede, 2023

Mia Middleton
Boy with Centipede, 2023
Oil on cotton
15.75 x 15.75 in (40 x 40 cm)

Mia Middleton Awake, 2023

Mia Middleton
Awake, 2023
Oil on cotton
6.3 x 6.3 in (16 x 16 cm)

Mia Middleton Remains, 2023

Mia Middleton
Remains, 2023
Oil on cotton
23.62 x 28.74 in (60 x 73 cm)

Mia Middleton Gamble, 2023

Mia Middleton
Gamble, 2023
Oil on cotton
11.81 x 11.81 in (30 x 30 cm)

Mia Middleton Gift, 2023

Mia Middleton
Gift, 2023
Oil on cotton
11.81 x 11.81 in (30 x 30 cm)

Mia Middleton Press, 2023

Mia Middleton
Press, 2023
Oil on linen
11.81 x 11.81 in (30 x 30 cm)

Mia Middleton Act, 2023

Mia Middleton
Act, 2023
Oil on cotton
15.75 x 15.75 in (40 x 40 cm)

Mia Middleton Burning, 2023

Mia Middleton
Burning, 2023
Oil on cotton
23.62 x 19.69 in (60 x 50 cm)

Mia Middleton Solo, 2023

Mia Middleton
Solo, 2023
Oil on cotton
15.75 x 15.75 in (40 x 40 cm)

Mia Middleton Bill, 2023

Mia Middleton
Bill, 2023
Oil on cotton
6.3 x 6.3 in (16 x 16 cm)

Mia Middleton Locket (Lost), 2023

Mia Middleton
Locket (Lost), 2023
Oil on cotton
6.3 x 6.3 in (16 x 16 cm)

Mia Middleton Spiral, 2023

Mia Middleton
Spiral, 2023
Oil on linen
7.87 x 7.87 in (20 x 20 cm)