The Colour of Time features images personally retouched under the artist's direction, and therefore provides the most accurate printed representation of his work: "The pictures I make are of nothing which exists in the world.... What I am trying to suggest is a state of mind which lifts the spirits and gives strength and some kind of clarity."
The Colour of Time is split into three key sections. In the first section, noted academic philosopher Nigel Warburton provides an overview of Fabian Miller's work to date, including pieces which were created prior to his landmark Year 1, October 2005-October 2006. Year 1 is Fabian Miller's documentation through the passage of a year, with Fabian Miller creating a daily image, with results that vary from gentle to radical. The book features examples of artworks from all of the artist's recent works, including Year 2 and later series, as well as pictures of Fabian Miller's work in the context of various gallery exhibitions.
The latter sections of the book more directly cover the periods of 2007-2008 and 2009-present. The second section encompasses full color plates of examples of work from the series Year 2. The artwork plates are prefixed with an introductory essay by novelist, mythologist and cultural historian Marina Warner. The final chapter is preceded with an introductory text by eminent travel writer and historian, Adam Nicolson, whose essay "The Otherworld" focuses on the prominence of the concept of night-time "nothingness" and the inexorable links between the notion of an "otherworld", the natural world, and the human psyche in Fabian Miller's work.
Garry Fabian Miller has a deserved reputation as one of the most progressive artists working with photography today and The Colour of Time is a beautifully reproduced overview and welcome addition to the published work of the artist's progressive and affecting recent output.
Marina Warner is Professor in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies at the University of Essex, trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, and an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies at the University of London.
Adam Nicolson is a British author who has written about English history, landscape and the sea. He was the 2009 winner of the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize.