Topics that have become the subject of Dan Mills’ work in recent years include cartography and other abstract systems of codifying information, history, satire, humor, beauty, and political/cartoon portraits. He has had solo shows recently at George Billis Gallery, New York; the Chicago Cultural Center; Sherry Frumkin Gallery, Santa Monica; Lafayette College; Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts Museum, China; and Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago. Group exhibitions include Dissident Futures, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Remix: Selections from the International College Center (traveling nationally); Party Headquarters: Voting is Just the Beginning, Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York; and Lines in the Earth: Maps, Power and the Imagination, Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Ketchum, ID. In 2009, Perceval Press, Santa Monica, published Dan Mills, The US Future States Atlas. His work is in numerous collections including BMO Harris Bank, Chicago; the British Library, London; University of California, Los Angeles; Harvard University; JPMorgan Chase, New York; Library of Congress, John D. & Catherine C. MacArthur Foundation, Chicago; and Wesleyan University.
Born in Waterloo, NY in 1956, Mills is the son of E. Andrew and Virginia Ward Mills, painters who lived and worked in upstate New York and outer Cape Cod. Mills grew up in Schenectady, NY, received a BFA from Rochester Institute of Technology in 1978, and MFA from Northern Illinois University in 1981. From 1981-94, he and his wife artist Gail Skudera lived and worked in Chicago, where they exhibited frequently and were active members of the art community. Mills lives and works in Maine.
Mills is Director of the Bates College Museum of Art and Lecturer in the Humanities in Lewiston, Maine. Previously, he was Director of the Samek Art Gallery at Bucknell University; Director of the Art Museum of SUNY Potsdam; and Curator of Art Collection, First National Bank of Chicago. His curatorial projects have traveled to over three dozen institutions throughout the US, and in China, including Chelsea Art Museum, New York; The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles; San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art; China Art, Archives and Warehouse, Beijing; Williams College Museum of Art. Mills is a frequent lecturer, curator, guest critic, and juror, and is an officer of the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG).