TR AVIS WALKER
September 21 - October 2, 2021 Jackson Hole Artist Reception | September 25 | 5:30-7:30pm
TR AVIS WALKER Within Range
Jackson Hole | Scottsdale | AltamiraArt.com
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Dark Side of the Canyon Acrylic on canvas | 48 x 60 inches Enquire
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TRAVIS WALKER 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.
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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.”
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Rico’s World Oil on canvas | 48 x 60 inches Enquire
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Night Rider II Acrylic on canvas | 11 x 14 inches Enquire
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Future Outpost (Pink) Acrylic on canvas | 11 x 14 inches Enquire
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Jenny’s World Oil on canvas | 24 x 30 inches Enquire
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No More Running Acrylic on canvas | 14 x 11 inches Enquire
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The Stand (Study) Acrylic on canvas | 11 x 14 inches Enquire
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Pool Moose (After Hockney) Acrylic on canvas | 48 x 60 inches Enquire
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Lady of the Lake Acrylic on canvas | 11 x 14 inches Enquire
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Daddy Issues II: The Painter Oil on canvas | 24 x 36 inches Enquire
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Pool Moose Study (After Hockney) Acrylic on canvas | 24 x 30 inches Enquire
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Darth’s Dream Study Acrylic on canvas | 24 x 30 inches Enquire
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Learning to Fly Oil on canvas | 18 x 36 inches Enquire
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172 Center Street | Jackson Hole Wyoming AltamiraArt.com | 307-739-4700
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