Sleep Obsessed: Adam Milner

Adam Milner, a Colorado-based artist, was recently featured in the 7 Days project. We were surprised not to see 27 exposures of beds, because of his body of work, which often seems to focus around the bedroom. Milner has documented and represented bedroom scenes and actions in almost every medium. We had to ask him about this motif.

VOYEUR: What is your obsession with beds and sleep?

My interest in the bed, sleep and bedrooms is part of a larger investigation of personal space and private, intimate moments.  Usually, my work presents documents from personal parts of my life and is often rooted in an ongoing routine or ritual that becomes a part of my everyday life. Projects like photographing my bed every morning, making drawings that document my body’s movement as I drift off to sleep, turning my pillows into oil paintings when they become tattered and old, and mailing my dreams to people via postcard every morning are examples that define my practice.

I am struck by the lack of physicality, intimacy, and communication in my daily operations, and I desire to explore, document, and archive interactions through the filter of these qualities. I want to offer the viewer intimate windows into my life, and I think there is an interesting intersection where intimacy, loneliness, vulnerability, generosity, selfishness, and vanity all collide. This point of collision really defines my life and practice.

As my projects become a part of my daily life, and my most personal experiences become the content of my work, I hope the two will continually blur and become at times inseparable. -Adam Milner

+ Adam’s work investigating personal and private spaces, moments, and relationships in his life is currently on view at Continental Drift at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Sensitive & Emotional at Vertigo Art Space, and Tracing Absence at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center.

Beds photographs courtesy of Adam Milner.