TR AVIS WALKER
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December 10 - 31, 2018 Jackson Hole Artist Reception | December 15 | 4:00–7:00pm
TR AVIS WALKER Autofiction
Jackson Hole | Scottsdale | AltamiraArt.com
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Family Vacation Oil on canvas | 36 x 48 inches Enquire
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Autofiction Travis Walker’s paintings park at the crossroads of fantasy and reality, fiction and autobiography, comedy and tragedy, satire and seriousness. They are as quirky as they are critical; as personal as they are universal. Straddling conditions as he does, Walker has settled into his own understanding of the West and his place within it. Walker spent his youth bouncing around the globe in an Air Force family. His first encounters with Western mythology were in books, movies, and music. The entertainment served as a counterpoint to the flat suburbias of his childhood. When it came time to plant himself in a profession in college, he tried majoring in environmental science at Virginia Tech. A painting field trip inspired him to transfer to Virginia Commonwealth University and pursue a fine-arts degree. After graduation, Walker decided to move West after recognizing that the poster he had hung on his wall in high school, of Ansel Adams’ “Snake River Overlook,” depicted the mountain range neighboring the town of Jackson.
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The scope of Adams (and his predecessor in Western landscapes Thomas Moran) resonates in Walker’s work, as does the saturated loneliness of Edward Hopper and the personality-rich palette of David Hockney. He considers his latest series a form of “autofiction.” A fusing of iconic and individuality, it is a concept borrowed from a music review of the honorably authentic Father John Misty. After painting en plein air for years, he now translates his skill with color and composition into narratives unique to this moment in Western history. Having traveled the world as a kid, the world now comes to him and his chosen home, an influx he reckons with on canvas. His enduring affinity for popular culture provides cues for cast and scenes, while
the Tetons and the tourists they draw fill in the rest. “Everybody has their own personal mythology that they build around the idea of the West,” Walker says. Embracing confluence, he welcomes when collectors fasten nostalgia to his paintings, when his memories intersect with theirs. Consider his treatment of classic moments from Forrest Gump, Thelma & Louise and Dirty Dancing: by his brush, familiar frames take on new freshness in the dichotomous terrain of Jackson Hole. His mythology of the American West melded with the collective memory of American pop culture makes for a limitless landscape of metaphors and meaning.
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Winter Breakup Oil on canvas | 48 x 60 inches Enquire
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Into the Blue Oil on canvas | 30 x 40 inches Enquire
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Fall Pool Party Acrylic on canvas | 24 x 30 inches Enquire
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Poodle Ranch No. 2 Acrylic on canvas | 30 x 40 inches Enquire
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Migration Oil on canvas | 48 x 60 inches Enquire
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Dawn After Breakup Acrylic on Canvas | 24 x 30 inches Enquire
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Forest Gump No. 1 Acrylic on canvas | 24 x 48 inches Enquire
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Death Star Cowboys Acrylic on canvas | 24 x 30 inches Enquire
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Summer Pool Party Acrylic on canvas | 24 x 30 inches Enquire
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Dawn After Breakup No. 2 Acrylic on canvas | 16 x 20 inches Enquire
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Lady of the Lake Acrylic on canvas | 24 x 30 inches Enquire
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Poodle Ranch No. 3 Acrylic on canvas | 60 x 48 inches Enquire
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172 Center Street | Jackson, Wyoming 83001 AltamiraArt.com | 307-739-4700
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