Tayloe Piggott Gallery is pleased to present Right at Home an exhibition of paintings by local artist Travis Walker. This is the gallery's first exhibition at our additional space on the west side of town- 3465 North Pines Way, Wilson, Wyoming. We will host a grand opening party along with our artist reception on Friday, December 22nd, from 4 - 7pm. All are welcome to attend.
Walker questions the notion of America and what it means to be American by portraying the shared but often separate experiences of the iconic American western landscape. Ever-considering how this vast landscape shapes and frames American culture, Walker observes the world changing around him and eternalizes these moments through painting, drawing, and printmaking. Following in the footsteps of American regionalists Edward Hopper, Grant Wood, and Maynard Dixon, Walker embeds a profound sense of place and culture in each work he creates. In doing so, he captures the timeless, playful, and often juxtaposed spirit of different regions across the United States, most often in the American West.
Walker is drawn to places and images that feel timeless, as if somehow caught between eras. Inspired by both nature and other objects of culture, such as film and comic books, Walker often blends found imagery with his observation of the western landscape. In these acts of autofiction, Walker creates his own, often surreal, scenes in which the familiar often becomes somewhat estranged—a bricolage of what Walker has seen, felt, and imagined. In creating his compositions, Walker also turns to cinema for inspiration. He studies the angles and perspectives the cinematographer or director has chosen. On occasion, Walker says, he even lifts characters from the silver screen and transplants them into a Jackson landscape.
Walker often works on location in Jackson Hole, capturing the seemingly mundane, quiet scenes of an old western town at a critical juncture. In Walker’s works, these places feel empty yet still inviting, as Walker’s colors create a near-dreamlike quality. By reducing the intricacies of peaks and crevices, solitary doorways, and deserted streets, Walker clears the way for a new kind of narrative—one that exchanges pioneers in covered wagons and romanticized cowboys for travelers in recreational vehicles. Using a style reminiscent of Hopper—a regionalist as well as a modernist who depicted the isolation of progress—Walker, too, evokes the voices of those left behind to document the convoluted pathways to tomorrow. “A lot of my work has to do with America,” Walker says. “I love the West, and I love the land. I moved out here following a dream, and every day I think about the landscape here, what direction I want to go.”
Travis Walker was born in Tokyo, Japan, and grew up as an Air Force brat whose nomadic childhood was filled with comic books, science fiction, and drawing. After graduating with a degree in Painting and Printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University, the allure of the western landscape drew him to the valley of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he has lived and worked for nearly 20 years, blending contemporary landscape painting with the fictional worlds of his past. Walker was a 2013 panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts' Artists Communities Grant. He was a 2013 Artist in Residence at the National Museum of Wildlife Art, and in 2012, he won the "Rising Star Award" from the Cultural Council of Jackson Hole. His work has been featured in SouthWest Art Magazine, Big Sky Journal, Mountain Living, Forbes, and The Guardian. He is the founder of the nonprofit Teton Artlab, an Artist In Residence program based in Jackson Hole.
Walker is drawn to places and images that feel timeless, as if somehow caught between eras. Inspired by both nature and other objects of culture, such as film and comic books, Walker often blends found imagery with his observation of the western landscape. In these acts of autofiction, Walker creates his own, often surreal, scenes in which the familiar often becomes somewhat estranged—a bricolage of what Walker has seen, felt, and imagined. In creating his compositions, Walker also turns to cinema for inspiration. He studies the angles and perspectives the cinematographer or director has chosen. On occasion, Walker says, he even lifts characters from the silver screen and transplants them into a Jackson landscape.
Walker often works on location in Jackson Hole, capturing the seemingly mundane, quiet scenes of an old western town at a critical juncture. In Walker’s works, these places feel empty yet still inviting, as Walker’s colors create a near-dreamlike quality. By reducing the intricacies of peaks and crevices, solitary doorways, and deserted streets, Walker clears the way for a new kind of narrative—one that exchanges pioneers in covered wagons and romanticized cowboys for travelers in recreational vehicles. Using a style reminiscent of Hopper—a regionalist as well as a modernist who depicted the isolation of progress—Walker, too, evokes the voices of those left behind to document the convoluted pathways to tomorrow. “A lot of my work has to do with America,” Walker says. “I love the West, and I love the land. I moved out here following a dream, and every day I think about the landscape here, what direction I want to go.”
Travis Walker was born in Tokyo, Japan, and grew up as an Air Force brat whose nomadic childhood was filled with comic books, science fiction, and drawing. After graduating with a degree in Painting and Printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University, the allure of the western landscape drew him to the valley of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he has lived and worked for nearly 20 years, blending contemporary landscape painting with the fictional worlds of his past. Walker was a 2013 panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts' Artists Communities Grant. He was a 2013 Artist in Residence at the National Museum of Wildlife Art, and in 2012, he won the "Rising Star Award" from the Cultural Council of Jackson Hole. His work has been featured in SouthWest Art Magazine, Big Sky Journal, Mountain Living, Forbes, and The Guardian. He is the founder of the nonprofit Teton Artlab, an Artist In Residence program based in Jackson Hole.
