statement

The activity of drawing first enters the creation of my work in the form of small doodles.  I consistently, and perhaps obsessively, sketch abstract shapes, dead little birdies, and designs for contraptions.  I formulate these into ideas for objects, often on odd scraps of household paper.  Sometimes these doodles evolve into finished works, and other times they merely serve to document an idea.  Sketches pervasively accumulate in my office, at home, and in the studio, and inform, but don't necessarily dictate, my making.  Many also find their way into the interior spaces and onto the surfaces of my objects.  

Clamping pieces of wood together impermanently, I am able to look at the overall composition and then decide on changes.  I might shorten boards or stack together a variety of linear parts to three-dimensionally draw out objects.  This process of sculpting is similar to sketching, and like a worked-over, much erased sketch, the completed sculptures have linear elements that vary in intensity, gesture, and movement.  I consider each piece of material to be a small component to the whole, like marks making up a drawing.

My idiosyncratic sculptures play off the forms and function of tools, toys, boats, and, perhaps, military equipment. These process-oriented works take a winding path to completion, evolving from continuously redrawn sketches and traveling through many transformations before being cut apart, reassembled, and reworked. Parts are often transplanted, left behind, or recycled. Through this method of construction and reconstruction, I am able to intuitively build and then, at a later time, make necessary changes.  

Embracing the unplanned, these oddly familiar, nearly useful-looking sculptures are imbued with human characteristics and gestures. Curious inspection and patient observation reveal previously unseen drawings and room-like interiors, many with small chairs and ladders "left over" from previous inhabitants.  These things have handles, openings, drawn symbols, and moveable parts, but like the mystery of a ritual object from a broken-down culture, the physical or metaphorical functions are left to the imagination.  In an increasingly commercialized, displaced society, I'm attempting to build slow, somewhat clumsy, objects that reveal a layered history.   

bio

born: 1973, Pennsylvania

education

Virginia Commonwealth University, MFA, 2000
Kutztown University, BS, 1996

selected awards/honors

Sculpture Grants, The Virginia A. Groot Foundation, Evanston, IL, 2009, 2008, 2006
Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship, The Kentucky Arts Council, Frankfort, KY, 2004
Emerging Artist Grant, American Craft Council, New York, NY, 2001
Resident Artist, Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC, 2000-2001

selected publications

INDA 5, The 5th International Drawing Annual, Manifest Press, Cincinnati, OH, 2010
National Drawing Annual, volume 2, Manifest Press, Cincinnati, OH, 2007
Penland Book of Woodworking, Lark Books, Asheville, NC, 2006
New American Paintings, Open Studios Press, Boston, MA, 2006

selected solo or two-person exhibits

The Love Boat & Other New Sculptures by Travis Townsend, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH, 2012
Travis Townsend: Ideas Rebuilt in My Garage While Contemplating Good and Evil, Haas Gallery, Bloomsburg University, PA, 2010
Travis Townsend: New Things and Drawings, Doppler PDX Gallery, Portland, OR, 2010
Travis Townsend: Anxious Accumulations, Southwest School of Art and Craft, San Antonio, TX, 2008

selected group shows

Personal Hang-Ups, Center for Art in Wood, Philadelphia, PA, 2012
Transformation 7, Society for Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, PA, 2009
The Edges of Grace: Provocative, Uncommon Craft, Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA, 2006  
Material Matters: A Poetics of Possibilities, Zone: Contemporary Art, New York, NY, 2005