Ingram Art News: Travis Shilling

INGRAM GALLERY

Greetings!

A group of people in a natural setting might muse about starting a fire from scratch.

Individuals by themselves will focus and experiment until a fire is lit.

Travis Shilling’s Smudge exhibition draws attention to our independence, our ability to activate when the time is right, and how we currently see things in new light.

Join us at the gallery for the artist’s opening reception on Saturday, May 4 from 1pm – 3pm.

The Mammoth Hunter - oil on canvas, 20 x 20 inches

TRAVIS SHILLING

Smudge

May 4 – 30 . 2024

Artist’s Opening:

Saturday, May 4 | 1pm – 3pm

An exploration of transformation and moving forward, Travis Shilling’s Smudge looks at our instinctual capacities and needed smudging to refresh, like a form of smelling salts. The canvases bring us into the now –– highlighting our sense of belonging and the importance of being there.

Starting from the beginning, the painterly works communicate with the landscape, our vast skies, and art history as much as they do with humanity and all forms of life and spirit.

Glacial Erratic II - oil on canvas, 14 x 14 inches

Prescient and mesmerizing, this important body of work is formed by different scales that are a marvel to experience together, with a majority of pieces in a square format of 14 x 14 inches. Contact the gallery for a complete exhibition catalogue with details including availability and pricing which ranges between $2200 to $11,000.

Ma'iingan - oil on canvas, 14 x 14 inches

In paintings like Ma’iingan (above), the artist’s eloquent decision-making and swift brushwork meet with expanding narratives, where each stroke is fundamental to its overall composition. The weight of each subject can be felt as the will of animal and spirit worlds hold vigil over the figure resting under coat.

Shoreline Camp - oil on canvas, 14 x 14 inches

Transformation - oil on canvas, 14 x 14 inches

Other works make direct reference to histories of art within the horizons and tapestries of the pieces. In Transformation (above), the tree trunks levitate and morph into remarkable shapes that are found in the lithography of Henri Matisse's Plate 51 from Florilège des Amours de Ronsard, 1948.

Transmission - oil on canvas, 14 x 14 inches

Active in art, Shilling held The Blue Tarp, his tenth solo exhibition at the gallery, in 2023 and directed Vertebrae starring actor and musician Gary Farmer in the same year. Shilling discussed the film at screenings in WIFF on Manitoulin Island, SFiFF in Santa Fe, and the Centre Film Festival in Pennsylvania.

Fish Spirits - oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches

The artist’s paintings are featured prominently in the public realm, with works in permanent collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Indigenous Art Centre for Crown-Indigenous Relations, and Global Affairs Canada and its embassies around the world. The artist’s works are also included in the Hart House Art Collection, the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of the American Indian (USA), and in corporate and private collections worldwide.

Travis Shilling (b. 1978 - Chippewas of Rama First Nation) has held public solo exhibitions at the Burlington Centre for the Arts in Vermont (USA), Ojibwe Cultural Foundation on Manitoulin Island, Orillia Museum of Art and History, MacLaren Art Centre, Mendel Art Gallery, and group exhibition at the Grimsby Public Art Gallery.

Shilling and his partner Naomi Woodman co-founded the non-profit Otter Art Club in 2018, animating the youth in their surrounding environment and receiving an award for Education in the Arts. The club has since expanded to schools and organizations through Ontario.