Commissioned by the arts organization Minetta Brook, Two Rivers was inspired by Henry Hudson's failed 1609 quest to discover a trade route between North America and China. Hutton observes the bustling industry of the Hudson from atop a ship's deck and through monocular portholes and hawsepipes before his panorama opens onto the quietude of the wooded palisades farther north. He then explores the Three Gorges area of the Yangtze River as it unfolds like a Chinese scroll painting, bearing witness to a spectral, sulfurous landscape of factory villages that have since been flooded by China's monumental hydroelectric dam project.