“Ben Miller – Endangered Rivers” presents nine paintings that range in size from 3 x 4 feet to 8 x 16 feet, and geographically from Montana and Illinois to New Jersey and New York. Each painting was done with a river organization – the Gallatin River with the Gallatin River Task Force, the Ruby, Big Hole, Beaverhead and Jefferson Rivers with Save Wild Trout, the North Fork of the Chicago River and the Calumet River with Friends of the Chicago River, the Hackensack River with Hackensack Riverkeepers, and the Hudson River with Friends of Liberty State Park. Along with generating awareness for the important work these groups are doing for river conservation, a portion of sales proceeds will go to these organizations.

Artists for time immemorial have shown us new ways to see the world. Ben’s eye looks out, not in. His mind is used to create tools to make art, not to be the subject of art. He is sophisticated, but also a populist, a fisherman and hunter who understands the world of prey and predator, who sees being human as also being animal.

Our world teeters on the brink of cataclysm from climate change, and human beings are more and more detached from nature and wilderness. The art world has pushed itself in to a corner of elitism, solipsism and market manipulation. I believe Ben is on the cusp of Zeitgeist – and the cusp of Zeitgeist is the stuff great art is made of.

Gary Snyder