LOVE & MEMORY: TRAVIS WALKER

11 Sep - 26 Oct 2025

TRAVIS WALKER
LOVE & MEMORY
Nostalgia - Originally a medical term coined in 1688 combining the Greek words “nostos” (homecoming) and “alga” (pain) to describe patients who were so fixated on going back to their estranged locations that became physically ill.
Ride the Snake, 2025

Oil on canvas

72 x 48 inches

Travis Walker creates work that captures the feeling of nostalgia inherent in the American western landscape, ever-considering how this vast backdrop shapes and frames American culture. Growing up, he moved often, resulting in a lifelong longing for memories of a hometown that doesn’t exist. Love & Memory draws from two recurring themes in Walker’s work: a deep affection for place and the way personal memories – often interwoven with memories of films or books – become blurred over time. He creates paintings that both capture the beauty of the western landscape and are emotionally resonant, leaving the viewer to extrapolate their own meaning from each piece.
Walker’s practice has evolved over the years, notably through larger scale works and new perspectives inspired by painting the Snake River from elevated vantage points, as seen in his monumental painting Ride the Snake. His similarly large-in-scale works A Heart I Know by Heart and Reception (After Remington) frame the enduring, ancient splendor of the Tetons, capturing a vastness that makes the viewer feel both small and infinite. His subject matter often blends natural beauty with unexpected, unsettling and even comedic elements, such as bears interacting with human environments in Delivery and Coming in from the Cold, or camper vans in dramatic, sometimes destructive contexts in Vacation Blast and Last Resort. These symbols are tied to his personal experience and the complexities of the “American dream.”
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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. By balancing realism with psychological depth, Walker’s paintings elevate the everyday landscape into a vision of enduring order, harmony, and complexity. He captures the timeless, playful, and often juxtaposed spirit of different regions across the United States, most often in the American West. For Walker, each painting captures and preserves the ever-changing landscapes and community landmarks of Jackson Hole, creating visual records of a particular time and place for himself and viewers alike.
Last Resort, 2025

Oil on panel

16 x 20 inches

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.

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