Rivers of MT, CO subject of Story Mill pop-up art exhibit
Gary Snyder Fine Art will continue to host an exhibition of new paintings by Ben Miller at the Story Mill Pop-Up Gallery this month. The featured artist has developed a unique style of painting which he calls “Fly Cast Painting.” The paintings primarily feature the many rivers of Colorado and Montana, and will be on view through July 18th.
This is Miller’s second exhibition at Story Mill Pop-Up Gallery. In the last year, his work has received national attention, and a short film on his innovative paintings will be released in July.
He celebrates, and intimately paints, rivers – the lifeblood of our land. His paintings present the natural world as a place of pilgrimage, discovery, inspiration, beauty and worship.
Without witnessing Miller paint a painting, it is almost impossible to understand how they are made. He starts by setting up a homemade easel on the banks of a river, upon which he places a sheet of transparent plexiglass. Using traditional fly fishing rods, he substitutes handmade “fly-brushes” for conventional hooked flies, saturates them in acrylic paint, and casts from over twenty feet on to the plexiglass. Over the course of a day, he casts over one thousand times, the mark of each cast eventually making up a finished painting of a chosen river.
As if the process wasn’t amazing enough, one comes to realize that Miller, in a sense, paints backwards – the actual finished painting is the reverse of the paint covered transparent polycarbonate. Turned around, the first strikes of the day are “on top” of the painting and the last form the backdrop.
Miller brings together two disparate cultures – fly fishing culture and high art culture – each with much to learn from the other. They breathe new life into an art world struggling to balance art and nature on our rapidly changing and endangered planet.
A percentage of all sales will go to river causes around the world.
Gary Snyder has been an art dealer for over 35 years. His galleries in New York City were known for pioneering American modernist art. He has been a private art dealer and consultant for the last ten years. He moved to Bozeman three years ago, and continues to advise in fine art acquisition and investment.
Snyder discovered Ben Miller on the banks of the Gallatin River in June of 2019, and he is excited to introduce this important body of work to the larger art world. Snyder worked with acclaimed cameraman Jon Dodson to create over one hour of video content on the artist website that allows viewers access to the remote rivers that Miller has painted.
The Story Mill Pop-Up Gallery is in a raw, 10,000-square foot industrial space that is part of the larger Historic Story Mill just outside of Bozeman. Exhibit hours are Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 1–7pm, or by appointment, through July 18th. For further information, please visit www.flycastpainting.com. •
