solo at Washington & Jefferson College
Travis Townsend
some thoughts on how and why I make these things
My studio is my garage—a common space for middle-aged American dads’ hobbies—where I tinker at night with memories and reflect on the things men build. Have we built good things? Sometimes yes, but the answer is often murky. I question the idea of progress and my role within it. Do these works improve on the past? Do they help the world, or are they simply clunky, funny-colored, useless objects? These questions, and the self-doubt they spark, live within the work itself and drive my practice.
My work evolves through layers of sketching, building, painting, and rebuilding—often over many years. Each piece accumulates marks and hand-built elements (measurement notations, globs of acrylic paint, wood joinery, band-sawn bowl forms), before emerging as functionless vessels, tool-like abstractions, or constructed paintings. Some works stem from the idea of a failed ark; others begin as surreal, cartoony plywood paintings. All follow a winding path, shaped by continuously redrawn sketches and travel through many transformations before being cut apart, reassembled, and reworked. Parts are transplanted, left behind, or recycled along the way of making.
These objects aim to feel both awkward and familiar, innovative and well-crafted in their own idiosyncratic way. They exist between clarity and disintegration, carrying a sense of history while embodying the joyfully absurd act of making art.
The drawings are often centered on goofy-looking dead birds surrounded by many flowers and tanks. These characters often occupy my imagination and show up within obsessive doodles of inter-connected vein-like lines. The image of a dead bird is potentially symbolic of so many things- death of beauty, environmental disaster, loss of innocence, and perhaps even Christ.