About

Ben Miller is a Montana-based painter best known for his Endangered River series. He received a BFA in art from WSU in Seattle and spent 12 years teaching art before moving to Bozeman, Montana in 2016. 

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 these works is to mark down the truth of a river, not something he thinks it should be. 

In this sense, 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 express the idea, that small parts of the world can hold our deepest attention, and looking closely offers great rewards.

Ben Miller has spent the past seven years painting the endangered rivers of Colorado and Montana. While pursuing this passion, he met Gary Snyder, an esteemed New York gallerist who’s been instrumental in the discovery of many notable artists. This led to a recent film collaboration, a documentary short, of which Miller is the subject, directed by Manabu Inada and titled The Rhythms of the River. Through this film, Miller came to the attention of the Japanese fashion brand South2 West8 and they’ve recently launched a clothing line collaboration inspired by his artwork. A new NFT collection based on Endangered Rivers will be available from the Brooklyn-based artist collaborative (Not)Gagosian. Half of Miller’s proceeds from these projects will fund Montana river preservation. 

Ben Miller’s art will next be seen at ExpoChicago in April, 2023.