GARY SNYDER FINE ART MONTANA TO PRESENT EMERGING ARTIST BEN MILLER AT ART MIAMI

Proceeds of Artist in Residence Installation to Benefit Pelican Harbor Seabird Station

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MEDIA CONTACT: Blythe Beaubien

blythe@biggerfishpr.com

406-600-9431

BOZEMAN, Mont. (November 12, 2024) - Gary Snyder Fine Art Montana (GSFAMT) will present

twelve paintings by Bozeman, Montana artist Ben Miller at Art Miami, December 3-8,

Booth AM128. Additionally, a painting by Miller on a large 1000-pound block of plexiglass,

created on-site of the nearby Little River, will be installed in the Art Miami Café, to be

renamed The Little River Café during the week of Art Miami. 

In association with Art Miami, Mana Public Arts, and Pelican Harbor Seabird Station, Miller will

be in residence over three days prior to the opening of the Art Miami fair. Casting with a fly-

fishing-rod well over 6,000 times, Miller will construct a work on a 4 x 8-foot, 1,000 pound block

of plexiglass reflecting his studies of the nearby Little River, a natural resource and historic site

threatened by environmental stress and development priorities. Proceeds from the sale of this

work will benefit Pelican Harbor Seabird Station, Miami’s premier native wildlife hospital and

education center.

Over the last five years, Ben Miller has developed an international reputation for his unique

paintings of rivers painted with a fly rod. The Endangered Rivers paintings, like the rivers

themselves, are complex layers of color and transparency built from thousands of cast strokes.

Miller’s stated goal for these works is to mark down the truth of a river and to raise awareness

for the importance of river preservation.

Ben Miller’s White Chuck River, WA - acrylic on polycarbonate 36” x 48”

Miller’s passion for river conservation has led him to projects with the Gallatin River Task Force,

Friends of the Chicago River, Hackensack River Keepers, Save Wild Trout, among others. Miller’s

paintings presented at the Art Miami booth will include many of these works, along with more

recent paintings of rivers in Montana and Washington.

Gary Snyder Fine Art continues Snyder’s involvement with fine art for over forty years. Snyder’s

galleries in Soho, 57th Street, and Chelsea showcased modern American art of the 1930s

through the 1960s. Following his move to Bozeman, Montana six years ago,

Snyder discovered Ben Miller painting by the banks of the famed Gallatin River. Miller’s unique

painting process led to a recent film collaboration, a documentary short directed by Manabu

Inada titled The Rhythms of the River, which can be viewed here. This film drew the attention of

the Japanese fashion brand South2 West8 which launched a clothing line inspired by Miller’s

artwork.

For more information, including endangered river projects, writings and video,

visit www.oxbowgallery.art, or email blythe@biggerfishpr.com, or call 406-600-9431

ABOUT BEN MILLER

Ben Miller is a Montana-based painter best known for his Endangered River series. He received

a BFA in art from Washington State University in Seattle and spent 12 years teaching art before

moving to Bozeman, Montana in 2016. He has spent the past seven years painting the

endangered western rivers of Montana, Washington, Colorado and Wyoming, and more

recently the rivers of Chicago, New Jersey and New York. Miller began his Endangered Rivers

series out of his deep passion for raising the awareness and importance of river preservation.

The Endangered Rivers paintings, like the rivers themselves, are complex layers of color and

transparency. Each work is created in reverse, with marks made on the back of a plexiglass

panel. When turned around, the first strikes of paint represent surface reflections and

whitewater rills. These highlights are then backed by successive color layers of deeper and

darker forms. While his preparation is calculated, the execution must be spontaneous. He must

first find the right spot, then read the river and the day. Miller’s stated goal for his works is to

mark down the truth of a river, not something he thinks it should be. Miller’s paintings are not

abstractions but a collection of moments that reflect the onrushing life of things in constant,

and constantly varied, collision - a complex snapshot of one place on a particular day. Miller’s

Endangered Rivers expresses the idea that small parts of the world can hold our deepest

attention, and looking closely offers great rewards.

Miller has exhibited at Story Mill Pop-Up Gallery in Bozeman, Montana in 2020 and 2021 and at

Two Rivers Gallery in Big Timber, Montana in 2021. In 2022, he was one of 16 international

artists selected to participate in EXPO CHICAGO’s PROFILE section. In the fall of 2022, Miller

conducted a four-day residency at MANA Contemporary in Jersey City, NJ where he created

paintings of the Hackensack and Hudson Rivers, subsequently exhibited at MANA. Miller

exhibited again at EXPO CHICAGO in 2023. Most recently Miller’s paintings were presented at

Oxbow Gallery in Bozeman, Montana.

BEN MILLER

###