The Endangered Rivers Project, a collaboration between Ben Miller and (Not)Gagosian, creates a new visual language, expanding the possibilities of environmental representation in art. Ben Miller, the Montana based painter best known for his Endangered Rivers series, creates work that is both abstract and allegiant to the real world, rooted in the conditions under which he creates each piece. (Not)Gagosian, a conceptual artist collaborative, has worked with Miller to create these digital iterations building upon his Endangered Rivers series. In The Endangered Rivers Project the digital and physical depend on one another to create an evolution of the work, furthering the concepts and process behind Miller’s original paintings.

Miller creates his paintings en plein air, working directly on the banks of the rivers he depicts. Far from traditional landscape, each work is created by a brush hand-crafted by Miller and attached to the end of a fly-fishing rod, cast against a Plexiglas sheet. This process is as integral to the painting as the subject matter, thus drawing comparisons to the Action Painters or Abstract Expressionists. However, Miller is as much a conservationist as he is an artist. This tension between art, action, and environment is the locus at which Miller’s work finds itself. The concept driven work relies on the circumstances Miller paints under, furthering representation of the river alone to the artist’s entire experience of being there. The passage of time, the weather, and the water conditions are also the subject of the work, and as such, the painting becomes a record of a particular instance. In a way, the works are data-driven, and Miller’s expression acts as a vehicle of representation of this data. 

Two years in the making, the exhibition includes a twenty-four-foot installation of six ever-changing digital rivers, as well as an animated timelapse depicting Big Hole River over the span of twenty four hours. This installation is accompanied by twenty four preparatory paintings for the larger Endangered Rivers, each with a digital counterpart to be viewed on a mobile phone. The exhibition will also feature an original painting of the East River by Ben Miller, his first in New York City, and one of the few urban Endangered Rivers. 

In the digital works, an algorithm composes Miller’s own brushstrokes, taken from the painted studies, in accordance with the real time conditions at the river depicted. (Not)Gagosian’s collaboration with Miller creates another layer of representation. Where Miller has previously been limited to recording this information within a matter of hours (the time he is able to spend at the river), the digital transmutation allows for an extension of Miller’s work, not just in its existence on a blockchain, but also in the algorithm’s ability to continuously receive and process data from the river. This collaboration maintains the artist’s hand, extending the conception of the work and process while remaining in the artist’s own aesthetic language. 

The juxtaposition between the physical and digital works here demonstrates their reciprocal nature. Visually, the digital pieces cannot exist without their physical counterparts, as it is Miller’s brush strokes that allow for the data to be represented by the algorithm. But conceptually too, the digital pieces provide a deepened understanding of Miller’s physical work. They do not simply draw from paintings themselves, but they also visualize the conceptual work that goes into Miller’s paintings before they are even created. They show the viewer the way each brush stroke is susceptible to external factors– the painting is a response to, and as such created by, the surroundings.

Both the digital and physical processes are a reflection of the fragility of Miller’s subject matter– the endangered river itself. With each work so dependent upon constantly changing factors, the instability of the outcome mirrors the endangerment of the rivers he paints. In the digital works, the viewer sees just how easily Miller’s brushstrokes are subject to change, and further, how the river is as well. In the context of our global reflection on environmental changes caused by human action, Miller creates a moment of pause for the viewer to consider his ultimate cause: preservation of these natural resources. Endangered Rivers shows us how our action, or inaction, has the potential to impact these ephemeral bodies.