Ben Miller Duwamish River, WA (7/2/25), 2025
Acrylic on plexiglass block
72 x 96 x 1 inch
Presented by Gary Snyder Fine Art MT, Booth A18
Artist Ben Miller, in association with Gary Snyder Fine Art MT, the Duwamish River Community Coalition and the Seattle Art Fair, is pleased to present Duwamish River, WA (7/2/25). A painting of Seattle’s Duwamish River, Miller created the work with his unique ‘Fly Cast Painting’ method – utilizing a fly-fishing rod, the artist cast more than ten thousand times over the course of a week, onto a 300-pound block of transparent plexiglass. Miller designs and ties various shaped materials, which he calls his ‘fly brushes’ onto the end of the rod which, when cast, leave specific marks with unique painterly effects.
Even more remarkable, Miller’s method involves cast-painting onto the back of the plexiglass, with the front of the painting covered; obscured from the artist’s sight for the duration of the work’s creation. Over the hours, layers of mark-making build to form rivers which emerge from the opposite side of the canvas. 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.
A portion of this sale will benefit the Duwamish River Community Coalition. Established in 2001, the organization provides resources, knowledge, and action to build a better environmental future and support communities impacted by the Duwamish River’s status as one of the most polluted rivers in the country. Their program, ‘The Duwamish is My River’, was a successful outreach initiative supported by a wide range of prominent and engaged Seattle residents. The Seattle Art Fair will present a panel with Miller in their theater on Sunday, July 20th at 12:00pm, to discuss the project and the needs of the Duwamish River and the community it serves.
Ben Miller, who now lives in Spokane, is best known for his Endangered Rivers 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, New York, and Miami. 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. Miller’s river conservation projects in Chicago, Bozeman, and Scottsdale have all received network television coverage – see https://www.oxbowgallery.art/press. A recent article in Montana Quarterly, along with writings by and about Ben can also be found on the Oxbow Gallery site.
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.