Born and raised in Croydon, South London, Gary was the youngest and creative child of the family always drawing or making something out of what was around him. Gary’s parents and grandparents were affected by rationing during the war to repurpose and reuse materials to give them a second life. As a child, Gary’s grandmother, who was a seamstress in a couturier, taught Gary about fabrics, pattern cutting, hand sewing, and embroidery techniques, which developed into a passion for textiles and color.

During these formative years, Gary would frequent the museums of London especially the Tate Britain, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Saatchi Collection where he was especially drawn to the artists who worked in unconventional materials, such as Damion Hirst, Anish Kapoor, and Gary Hume.

In 1995, Gary Miller earned a BFA degree in Fashion Design with Textiles from Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication, moved to New York, and pursued a career in Fashion Design. He continued to take self-guided life drawing classes, where he experimented with various pens, inks, pastels, paints, and collages, again making use of what was around him. In the Fall of 2019, Gary has graduated with an MFA in Fine Art and painting from San Francisco's Academy of Art University, where he has developed a new series of contemporary mixed media portraits. In each of these works, Gary combines his original life model photographic imagery, his lifelong passion for fabric and textiles along his raw approach to painting.

Gary gets bored quickly and enjoys experimenting with various mixed-media techniques. Gary will try any combination of materials and techniques together to see the outcome that is right for each portrait. It is rare Gary only just paints, there I always an element of shine combined with a foundation of understanding structure and form.