Travis Boyer

Johannes Vogt Gallery is pleased to announce Velours a series of new paintings by Travis Boyer and his second solo exhibition at the gallery.

Travis Boyer’s abstract paintings on silk velvet mounted on panel are an homage to the material and an investigation into its specific qualities. The paintings explore modified roles where the ground acts as a brush. The brush stroke on a brush surface—the technique that gives the sideband of a beaver top hat its metallic gleam is leveraged into the field of abstraction. This action prioritizes the position of the viewer over methods of reproduction, denying a singularly frontal experience. Boyer uses spills, pokes, and brush exchange to create moments that flirt with representation as they absorb into the silk fiber. The paintings range from minimal gestures anchored by the parallax effect of the surface, to dense spaces of additive and subtractive processes. Pictorial depth, brush exchange, and surface disruptions are formally composed with the spirit, humor, and ethos of Boyer’s earlier work.

Travis Boyer (b. 1979 Fort Worth, TX) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Boyer’s work has recently been included in group exhibitions at Stedlijk Museum, Amsterdam; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; and the DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA. He has exhibited his work nationally and internationally at numerous galleries including Participant, Inc, New York, NY; 247365, Brooklyn, NY, Signal Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; John Connelly Presents, New York, NY; and Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam. He was an artist in residence at the Frida Hansen Hus and Rogaland Kunstsenter in Stavanger, Norway during the summer of 2014 and was one of the first participants of the Fire Island Artist Residency in 2013. Boyer holds an MFA in Painting from the Milton Avery Graduate School of Fine Arts at Bard College.