Min Dae, A Portrait of Miles

A description of this portrait written by Miles’ Family 2011 Five years ago, aged 29, Miles suffered a traumatic brain injury whilst attempting a notoriously difficult and dangerous snowboarding jump in St. Anton, Austria. For Miles’ family this portrait captures his extraordinary vitality and the joy he found in pushing life to its limits, whether physically, spiritually or intellectually.  His joyful, almost martial recklessness was to take him beyond those limits, and the poignancy of his situation now is also captured here.  Movingly, with great delicacy, the portrait shows the permanence of the imprint a person makes when they grab life, but also the ephemerality of the life itself; for us the relationship between physicality and spirituality that Miles so powerfully encapsulated is held in beautiful balance.