Gary Snyder Fine Art MT, presents the series ‘Endangered Rivers’, by Ben Miller. Over the last six years, Miller has developed an international reputation for his unique works of rivers painted with a fly rod. These paintings, like the rivers themselves, are complex layers of color and transparency, built from thousands of cast strokes. Miller’s stated goal is to mark down the truth of a river and to raise awareness for the importance of river preservation. The artist’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, and others.

In association with Art Miami, Mana Public Arts, and Pelican Harbor Seabird Station, Miller will complete a three-day artist residency, prior to the opening of the Art Miami fair. Casting with a fly-fishing rod well over 6,000 times, Miller will construct a 3 x 8 foot diptych painted on plexiglass, reflecting his studies of the nearby Little River: a natural resource and historic site threatened by environmental stress and development priorities. This monumental work can be seen at the Art Miami Café, renamed The Little River Café. Proceeds from the sale will benefit Pelican Harbor Seabird Station, Miami’s premier native wildlife hospital and education centre.

Miller’s profound relationship with his muse, the river, manifests work which builds upon historical movements including American wilderness painting, impressionism, abstract expressionism, and performance art. The artist becomes a conduit for the dynamism of the river, as he explores the complexity of representing a body of water up close. Here Miller challenges the perceived dichotomy between abstraction and figuration; creating paintings which are both abstract representations of the natural figurative world, and representational works of an inherently abstract subject.