Travis Childers: Borrowed and Not Returned

Join Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art (Tephra ICA) for an in-person opening reception of Borrowed and Not Returned, currently on view at Tephra ICA at Signature, where you will hear from Fairfax, VA-based artist Travis Childers and Tephra ICA's Associate Curator Hannah Barco. The reception will take place at the outdoor courtyard at the Signature Apartments on Wednesday, April 20, 6pm. Free and open to the public. Please RSVP at info@tephraica.org.

About the Exhibition

Borrowed and Not Returned includes three recent and ongoing series by 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 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.

Altered and constructed landscapes serve as anchors across Childers’ work, creating a common thread between a wide variety of human experiences. Underlying his practice, is the sensibility that in our human relationship to landscape, there is something borrowed and not returned.

Gallery visitors are welcome Tuesday–Saturday from 11am–5pm. Face masks are required to enter. The gallery is located at the Signature apartment building at 11850 Freedom Dr, Reston, VA.