Alix Travis

Alix Hallman Travis

"The movement of the liquid watercolor is exhilarating. The medium itself guides me in making the painting--- It does its thing and I react. I do my thing and it reacts, and so a dance is established. Painting with watercolor is like the waltz, or sometimes the tango: two moving rhythmically across the floor as one. "

In warm weather, Alix Travis is found outside, painting familiar subjects that most of us have ceased to notice because we see them every day. In colder weather, she retreats to her studio to paint fruits and vegetables directly, without sketching. With her painter's eye, she looks for shapes, angles, light effects, and interesting lines that take the subject beyond the ordinary.

Travis uses large brushes on very wet paper to create distinctive, loose, and transparent paintings of vibrant color. Her technique is gestural. She paints quickly with broad strokes and only a passing attention to detail. Travis does not paint from photographs. It is her immediate, direct, and personal response to the subject that accounts for the freshness and immediacy of the paintings.

Travis entered the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1999 with a portfolio award. After two years of study, she moved to The Art Students League, New York where in 2007 she was awarded a Merit Award to study in Paris. She maintains a studio in the Catskill Mountains where she exhibits regularly.

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Selected Exhibitions & Awards
From Start To Finish, Wilber Gallery, Oneonta, NY, USA, 2010
Best of Show, North East Watercolor Society (Annual Juried Members Exhibition), Orange, NY, USA, 2010
Kitchen Paintings, The Futon Company, Worcester, MA, USA, 2010
Collections
Paris Memories, 4 pieces, Assumption College, Worcester, MA, USA, 2010
Dome Car With Train Shed, Delaware & Ulster Historical Railroad, Arkville, NY, 2010