SOLO EXHIBITION | JACKSON, WY
Altamira Fine Art Jackson is pleased to present a new exhibtion for Jackson artist Travis Walker.
Within Range opens September 21st with an Artist Reception on Saturday, September 25 from 5:30-7:30pm.
WITHIN RANGE
The sublime and the absurd coexist in the works of Travis Walker, filling in the liminal space between the fantastical and the prescient. By positioning Darth Vader on the precipice of the Grand Canyon, Walker is at once referencing the classic Romantic painting "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog" by Caspar David Friedrich, but also contrasting the current convergence of characters crowding wild thresholds in the West and the loneliness that ensues. "We as humans have turned the West into an amusement park," he says. "We treat these incredible natural places as trampolines for our Instagram accounts, for getting people to like us. Sometimes, the stories I paint need to be told but don't necessarily have perfect endings," he says.
By his brush, nostalgia and weirdness become simpatico, pop heroes hang out with historic figures, and autobiography borrows from fiction. In conversation and on canvas, he unpacks a riot of references from the personal familiarity of Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite to the sci-fi inspiration of Homer's The Odyssey and the poolside misanthropy of David Hockney. "I speak for the everyday person: our experiences as humans have been filtered through popular culture," the artist says. "I'm trying to reference these scenes we've all observed." As such, Walker doesn't pass judgment on the dynamics he depicts; instead, he sets the scenes, casts the characters, and then lets the plots unfold in viewers' imaginations. "I like people's interpretations of the paintings-that's how they are finished."
Walker likens his paintings to musical covers, reinterpretations that reinvent the original compositions. This is his role as an artist, to reinterpret classical themes through contemporary lenses. "I don't know the answers to the questions I'm asking."
Presales available. Contact the gallery for more details, (307) 739-4700, connect@altmairaart.com.