(Jackson, WY)  - The Grand Teton Association’s “Artists in the Environment” Summer Plein Air Series welcomes Jackson artist Travis Walker. Walker will give a free painting demonstration on Saturday, July 14, 2012 at Oxbow Bend, Grand Teton National Park, 9:00 am - 12:00 Noon.  This event is free and open to the public! 

“Everywhere I’ve ever been, my art has been about that place,” says Walker. “I remember most powerfully the places I’ve painted and drawn. The act of recording them makes me remember.”

Walker first moved to Jackson Hole in 2002 to pursue an arts career. From 2003-2005 he exhibited his work regionally while working full time at the Art Association of Jackson Hole, co-producing exhibits, classes, film series, fundraisers, and teaching printmaking. In 2007, Walker founded Teton Artlab, opening in a tiny space in the rear of Stage Stop Mall. It was the first commercial gallery dedicated to a new generation of experimental, contemporary artists. Many of those artists are now successful, and Walker can be credited with providing their first local gallery shows. Walker has gone on to build and inspire some of Jackson’s most exciting contemporary arts venues, including approximately seventy exhibitions. Walker established Jackson’s Factory Studios and Caldera Festival, and his newest project, Big Haus Studios. He has been a resident artist and guest lecturer at the National Museum of Wildlife Art and a Vermont Studio Center resident printmaker.

Walker wants his paintings to be like windows, points of light that brighten a room. He’s been described as a “satellite, zooming in and out of our landscapes, freezing vast spaces and solitary formations.” Flaxen parachutes float forever, purple shadows never give way to night, deserted cabins hold the secrets of generations of Western settlers. His paintings have an extra-terrestrial glow. Walker’s “Trailer Series” explore what he considers a symbol of the transient west.   Manifestations of contradictory words, “mobile” and “home,” trailers represent the American dream.

Walker may not consider himself a “cross-over” painter, but his ability to capture Jackson Hole and its surrounding landscapes are now firmly part of a great painting tradition. Coming to Jackson as an “anti-establishment” artist, he is now arguably Jackson’s greatest mentor to its new generation of artists. Walker plans on bringing a “Guernica-sized” canvas to his demonstration at Oxbow.  

We’re all tapping from the same well, this Western idea of space and color,” says Walker. Our art is unique.” 

Contact Travis Walker: phone: 307.699.0836   email: info@tetonartlab.com  www.traviswalker.com     Grand Teton Association: 307.739.3406