Ben Miller
A RIVER IS the convergence of three forces—water, gravity and topography—each inseparable from the others. It is a living system in motion, existing and being shaped at the same time. Montana-based artist Ben Miller returns to this shifting relationship again and again, as much a subject to be captured as a presence to remain in relation with.
His practice comes out of a tradition of American wilderness painting pioneered by Charles M. Russell and the action painting of Jackson Pollock. The works resist easy classification, moving between abstraction and reference, control and chance—held together by Miller's unique and original process of making, which he calls Fly-Cast Painting.
A fly rod is a system of tapers—handle into shaft, shaft into line, line into leader. That taper is the engine of Miller's work. Every painting begins as a physical arc through space: thousands of casts, thousands of accelerations and releases of the shaped materials attached to the end of the line he calls Fly Brushes.
He paints on the back of clear plexiglass. Plexiglass does not absorb the strike; it receives it. Only after the casting is finished and the paint has dried is the panel turned around to reveal the river.
Miller's stated goal for these works is not to invent a river, but to mark down the truth of the one in front of him.
In 2018, Miller began the Endangered Rivers Project out of a growing recognition that the rivers that had shaped his life and practice were also among the systems most at risk.
At the local level, Miller collaborated with the Gallatin River Task Force and Save Wild Trout in Montana, raising awareness and funding for river conservation. Beyond these relationships, his work has extended to waterways across the country through projects with Friends of the Chicago River, the Duwamish Tribe, the Hackensack Riverkeeper, American Rivers and others working on behalf of rivers nationwide.
Miller earned his bachelor of fine arts from Washington State University and spent more than a decade teaching art in his hometown of Darrington, Washington. Set amid rivers, forests and steep terrain, Darrington formed both his early visual language and his lifelong relationship to fly fishing.
In 2016, he left teaching to devote his full attention to making art. He relocated to Bozeman, Montana, an international center of fly-fishing culture and craft. What had long been parallel devotions to painting and fly fishing began to converge.
The first experiments were simple: casting paint attached to line, letting the physical intelligence of the cast create marks no brush could replicate. Over time, those experiments became a disciplined method and plexiglass emerged as the ideal surface to accept the velocity of the casts and allow the painting to emerge on the reverse.
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Ben creating one of his signature Fly-Cast Paintings, East River, CO, 2019
A range of writers—from art historians to cultural critics to fly-fishing experts—have placed Miller’s work in dialogue with American wilderness painting, action painting and the embodied knowledge of fly fishing, while recognizing that his practice occupies a territory distinctly its own.
Fly fisherman Dave Corcoran recalls:
“I thought that in 45 years I had seen just about everything in fly fishing but this, to put it mildly, blew my mind. There was a guy with a fly rod in his hand and he was casting something toward the easel, creating a painting with his fly rod.”
Henry Adams, the Ruth Coulter Heede Professor of Art History at Case Western Reserve University, writes:
“When Jackson Pollock first exhibited his paintings, they sent out a palpable energy quite different from a traditional Renaissance painting. Viewers were blown into another zone of consciousness. We get this same feeling from Ben Miller’s work, which transfers our usual ideas about representation into something different—a form of awareness that is strangely abstract, mystical and even a bit religious.”
Joe Gioia—a widely published photographer and cultural critic—situates Miller’s work at the intersection of discipline and immediacy:
“To create the varied marks (what he calls ‘hits’) for his new work, Miller then began to experiment with various materials—wool, cotton, rubber, plastic and nylon—shaping loops, lines, balls and knots designed to deliver paint in distinct patterns. These were steadily refined to form what Miller calls his fly brushes. They are alternative life forms in mostly natural shapes, creatures with long feelers, short wings and fat thoraxes—a private entomology of special effects.”
Fine art dealer Gary Snyder frames Miller’s position:
“He powerfully comes out of two important artistic traditions, American wilderness painting and the breakthroughs of Jackson Pollock, and he is positioned uniquely, to his credit, outside of a third—the dominant art world of today. 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.”
SOUTH2 WEST8's Fall 2026 line includes reproductions of more of Ben's Fly-Cast Paintings. Some pieces feature an Endangered Rivers Project wordmark.
Miller’s work has also found resonance within the fashion world. The Japanese boutique brand SOUTH2 WEST8 has integrated motifs from his paintings into two clothing lines, with a third collection slated for 2026. The partnership reflects a broader dialogue between contemporary art and fashion.
Miller’s practice extends beyond the studio into site-specific, collaborative work centered on rivers and river systems. Miller has begun painting on 1-inch thick plexiglass—he painted Seattle’s Duwamish River on a 72 x 96 inches x 1-inch thick block of plexiglass that weighed 300 pounds. This new medium opens the possibility of outdoor sculpture.
Ben Miller has stated, “I want to paint every river in the world,” and welcomes any opportunity to do so.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS & ART FAIRS
2026 — Fly-Cast Paintings, Expo Chicago, Chicago, IL (upcoming)
2026 — Fly-Cast Paintings, Scottsdale Ferrari Art Fair, Scottsdale, AZ (upcoming)
2025 — Fly-Cast Paintings, Seattle Art Fair, Seattle, WA
2025 — Ben Miller – Endangered Rivers, Scottsdale Ferrari Art Fair, Scottsdale, AZ
2024 — Fly-Cast Paintings, Art Miami, Miami, FL
2023 — Ben Miller – Endangered Rivers, Oxbow Gallery, Bozeman, MT; exhibition and artist talk
2023 — Ben Miller, Recent Paintings, Expo Chicago, Chicago, IL
2022 — Ben Miller, Endangered Rivers, Gary Snyder Fine Art MT, New York, NY and Bozeman, MT
2022 — Ben Miller, Hackensack and Hudson River Paintings, MANA Contemporary, NJ
2021 — Ben Miller, Selected Paintings, Two Rivers Gallery, Big Timber, MT
2021 — Ben Miller, Endangered Rivers, Expo Chicago, Profile Feature, Chicago, IL
2020 — Ben Miller, Recent Paintings, Story Mill Gallery, Bozeman, MT
2019 — Ben Miller, Fly-Cast Paintings, Story Mill Gallery, Bozeman, MT
ENDANGERED RIVERS PROJECT
2026 — Chicago River, IL; Friends of the Chicago River (upcoming)
2026 — Gila River, AZ; Gila River Tribe (upcoming)
2025 — Duwamish River, WA; Duwamish River Community Council and Duwamish River Tribe
2025 — Colorado River, AZ; Colorado River Indian Tribes
2024 — Little River, FL; Pelican Harbor Seabird Station
2023 — Jefferson Basin, Big Hole, Ruby and Beaverhead Rivers, MT; Save Wild Trout
2023 — Chicago River, IL; Environmental Defense Fund
2022 — Hackensack and Hudson Rivers, NJ; Hackensack Riverkeepers and Liberty State Park
2022 — Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, NJ
2022 — Gallatin River, MT; Gallatin River Task Force
2021 — Chicago River, IL; Friends of the Chicago River
PRESS & PUBLICATIONS
Arizona’s Family, “Montana artist sells painting, makes donation to Arizona tribes,” April 2, 2025.
Artnet Gallery Network, “Meet the Artist Advocating for River Preservation, One Canvas at a Time,” August 21, 2025.
CBS News Chicago, “Artist uses unusual fly casting style to paint Chicago River,”April 3, 2022.
Bryanna Carroll, “Bozeman Artist raises River awareness through Painting,” NBC Montana, February 15, 2025.
Michele Corriel, “Ben Miller,” Big Sky Journal (annual fly fishing issue), February 2026.
Michele Corriel, “Casting a River,” Montana Quarterly, Fall 2024.
Tucker Harris, “The art of the cast,” Explore Big Sky, April 1, 2022.
Patty Wetli, “The Chicago River Comes Alive in New Portrait Painted With Fishing Rod and Reel,” WTTW News Chicago, April 5, 2022.
SELECTED ESSAYS & CATALOG TEXTS
Adams, Henry, Ben Miller: Fishing for a Masterpiece, commissioned essay, Gary Snyder Fine Art MT, 2023.
Corcoran, Dave, “Meeting Ben Miller on the River,” commissioned essay, Gary Snyder Fine Art MT, 2023.
Dzitko, Michal, “The Landscapes of Ben Miller,” commissioned interview, Gary Snyder Fine Art MT, 2024.
Gioia, Joe, “Ben Miller’s Art of Dry Fly Painting,” commissioned essay, Gary Snyder Fine Art MT, 2023.
Gioia, Joe, “The Riverscapes of Ben Miller,” commissioned essay, Gary Snyder Fine Art MT, 2022.
Snyder, Gary, “Ben Miller,” Gary Snyder Fine Art MT, 2023.
Snyder, Gary, “You Missed the Mark, Jerry,” Gary Snyder Fine Art MT, 2024.
SELECTED COLLABORATIONS
2022 - present — Japanese fashion brand SOUTH2 WEST8, original artwork printed on apparel; 2022, 2023 and (upcoming) fall 2026 lines.
EDUCATION
Washington State University, Pullman, WA — BFA Visual Arts, 2001
Montana State University, Bozeman, MT — Exchange Program, 2001
Central Washington University, Ellensburg, WA — K–12 Teaching Certification, 2004