A CWMBRAN-BORN artist is hosting an exhibition of her artwork next month.

Fiona Miller will be exhibiting her artwork at the Joanna Field Gallery at Milford Haven’s Torch Theatre.

The Cwmbran-born, Pembroke resident had spent most of her early life travelling around the world, and the Phoenix Rising exhibition at the Torch is the rebirth of her creative spirit and homecoming to Wales.

Ms Miller's busy and unusual life has helped to shape her into the artist she is today. She said: “Even though I was born in the Valleys, I was only there for about eight months before being moved to the Middle East (Dubai, Muscat, Oman, Lebanon) and then moving to Cyprus and finally returning to the UK in the early 70s to start education in a more conventional and ‘normal’ way.”

Ms Miller is her parents’ fourth daughter and they inspired her creativity, but it was father George McCoach, who was the reason for the travel after the chartered quantity surveyor was ‘headhunted’ by a Sheikh in the early 60s.

South Wales Argus: Fiona Miller will be exhibiting at the Torch Theatre in February

She continued: “My dad was essentially a creative and skilled ‘hobby’ artist, and he is probably where I get my inherited creative streak from. I sadly lost my dad when I was 15 years old, but luckily, I was also inspired by watching my mum’s exquisite interior design skills and innate ability to work with colours, in an amateur way.

“She always knew if something wasn’t quite right visually and would move things even slightly to make it look better when she was putting our many homes together in different countries. I have inherited this ‘artist’s eye’ and will not usually settle until I have straightened that picture or rearranged the flowers to sit better in a vase!”

Ms Miller is a self-taught artist and her work is focused on abstract artwork in painting and incredibly detailed photographic prints; a study in juxtaposition. Visitors to the exhibition will see abstract artwork, acrylic on canvas, quirky photography prints, writing and some curated notes. She said: “I love being guided through the inspirations, feelings and use of colours for each piece.”

This will be Ms Miller's first exhibition both at the Torch and also in Wales, but she has recently hosted an exhibition in Eastbourne. “It feels incredibly scary, challenging and exciting in equal measure,” she said. “It is so wonderfully heart-warming and an honour to be given this opportunity in a community I am only now getting to know.”

Ms Miller is a qualified Art as a Person-Centred Therapy Practitioner and a Neurolinguistic Programming Practitioner and will be setting up art workshops for abstract acrylic art. For more information about the workshops, visit www.fionamillerart.com. The Phoenix Rising exhibition will be at the Joanna Field Gallery at the Torch Theatre from Saturday, February 3 until Thursday, February 28, and can be visited when the Torch Theatre is open. For more information, visit www.torchtheatre.co.uk.