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Borrowed and Not Returned
On view through June 28, 2022
Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art
Reston, Virginia
tephraica.org

Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art (Tephra ICA) presents “Borrowed and Not Returned,” an exhibition of three recent and ongoing series by Virginia-based artist Travis Childers. Childers’ work is concerned with our society’s extractive relationship to nature, though he often approaches the topic with humor and a healthy dose of culpability as he acknowledges his own participation. In his new “Story Tellers” series, Childers employs miniature, model railroad materials to create landscapes that, despite their small size, imply the depth of the earth and the boundlessness of the sky. In contrast, Childers’ collage work in the Vegetation series presents opaque facades and coverings that create expansive fields of borrowed images.

[Image: Travis Childers, Horizons (detail), 2019.]