Mark Travers graduated with a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis with a concentration in Multi-Media and Sculpture, and an MFA from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York with a focus on Painting.
In his upcoming exhibition, A New Land, Travers will exhibit his bright, bold, and large “New Land” paintings. Of these works, Travers writes “I spent a good part of my work career flying across the country, often leaving early in the morning as the sun was coming up. I enjoyed looking out the airplane’s windows on the landscape below, seeing the rivers, streams, and neatly furrowed rows of crops from 20,000 feet. These images always gave me hope. In this series, I present America at a new, optimistic beginning in a post-pandemic world. I also present a new type of landscape painting, unbound from the traditional two-point perspective and horizon line.” Travers’s paintings reference multiple sources, among them the Color Field painters of the 1950s and the Hard Edge and Abstract Expressionists of the 50s and 60s as well as the works from multiple contemporary artists, architects, and textile designers. “I have a wide appreciation for art in all its forms, styles, and movements,” Travers says.
Travers will also exhibit part of his thoughtful, meditative “Reliquary” collection. These are bas-relief wall sculptures that have been hand carved and painted by the artist. Travers’s Reliquary sculptures are informed by the Assyrian relief sculptures from 800 B.C., the Buddhist Steles from 1500 B.C., decorative ironworks from the 1800s and 1900s, as well as art from more contemporary figures. Travers writes, “In recent travels to museums, I’ve reintroduced myself to the sculptures of ancient artists and craftsmen from the Middle and Far East. Some of these museum works are over 3,000 years old. In Reliquary, I honor the beauty and elegance of these works by including some of their forms, characters, and symbols into new, contemporary reinterpretations of language, mathematics, and architecture.”
HOUSKA Gallery is pleased to announce a group exhibition featuring new works from St. Louis-based artists: Jessica Bremehr, Matt Gray, Jessica Lynn Hunt, Justin King, and Jen Wohlner.
1Feed Your Head is a multi-media collection including interactive internet art, floor and wall sculptures, and drawings. The works include themes of daily routine, the desire to live a plant’s life, relationships with God and others, and things that “just look cool.” With a variety of materials and colors, each artist’s perspective will surely leave the viewer with eye candy and content to chew on.
