Image: Travis Townsend

Travis Townsend, current OCAC Artist-in-Residence, is showing NEW THINGS + DRAWINGS @ DOPPLER PDX, 625 NW Everett Street #109 in Portland, Oregon. The show runs August 5-14, 2010 and by appointment. Opening Reception:  August 5th 5:30-9:00pm. Gallery Hours:  Saturdays (August 7th & 14h) 1-4pm
 

Doppler PDX presents Travis Townsend’s newest work: NEW THINGS + DRAWINGS. There is something refreshing and invigorating for an artist to break-away from their typical creating process and reworking of final pieces. Townsend takes on takes on and exhibits the results of his two week residency at Oregon College of Art and Craft.  For Townsend the two week period was a chance to put aside his lengthy process of making, looking, thinking, reworking months later, and then exhibiting a year (or more) later, and instead is creating a body of work in a two week period with minimal reworking time.
 

NEW THINGS + DRAWINGS are works created with using a mixture of plywood, reclaimed building materials, art student wood scraps, and other hardware store materials. Townsend’s works are idiosyncratic sculptures that play off the forms and function of tools, toys, and military equipment and include Townsend’s usual cast of characters (tanks, dead birds, flower bombs, and targets). While Townsend built, altered, and adapted his pieces, he also embraced the unplanned and oddly familiar into nearly useful-looking  sculptures that are imbued with human characteristics and gestures.
 

Travis Townsend studied at Kutztown University (BS 1996) and Virginia Commonwealth University (MFA 2000), has recently presented solo exhibitions at the Southwest School of Art and Craft (San Antonio), Weston Gallery (Cincinnati), Georgetown College (KY), and the New Arts Program (PA), and been included in group exhibitions at the University of Hawaii, Cedarhurst Center for the Arts (IL), Kendall College (MI); Spaces Gallery (Cleveland); Lehigh University (PA); and Zone: Chelsea (New York).  Images of his artwork have been published in The Penland Book of Woodworking, New American Paintings, and the Manifest National Drawing Annual.  His awards include an Emerging Artist Grant from the American Craft Council, a Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council, three grants from the Virginia A. Groot Foundation, and a National Young Sculptors Award from Miami University. He lives in Lexington, KY, teaches drawing, design, and concepts at Eastern Kentucky University. Travis recently curated an exhibition titled Generously Odd for the Lexington Art League.
  

For more information or to schedule an appointment, please visit: http://www.dopplerpdx.com