Thresholds - Travis De Vries

Journal Entry

19th of April, 2022 Travis De Vries

I haven’t exhibited for two years. May 2020 was my last showing of work. I haven’t painted physically for about the same length of time. I painted for the first time around a month ago. It felt pointless to paint with nowhere to show work, no one to buy work. I worked in oils, a familiar medium, the tubes of rich colour untouched for so long. Lids cemented on, I cut open tubes with a studio knife. The smell of medium fills the air. My brushes which had laid dormant find life once again.

My practice has changed. I am more studied, more deliberate than I used to be. I take the time to go through each of the steps of building the work, building the layers. I am a different artist now.

I rediscovered a passion for photography, the techniques, the equipment, focusing everything I have and capturing a single moment, or jamming a hundred small moments into a single frame. Working with film has become an obsession. I build this into my process of painting, I work, now more than ever before, collaborating with myself, across different mediums. Interpreting the version of the world I see into pictures for other people to see and hold, to feel the grain of.

I document at each step. I explore the world, making notes, recording sounds and thoughts, searching for a scene to render visually. I then take a camera out, either loaded with a film chosen for that scene or digitally if that is the method I think is going to better serve the work. I then continue composing the scene, adjusting for light, depth, line, shadow, focus. Decisions.

Once the shot or multiple shots across multiple scenes are taken I return to the studio and work on the image, film scanned into my computer workstation after it’s been sent for developing or the digital files are sorted, edited and logged.

I then either rework and recompose multiple images digitally, creating a new landscape, one that doesn’t exist anywhere, that couldn’t possibly exist because it's made up of several different places, kilometers apart. Or I fall in love with a real image I’ve taken. Either way these become a reference, that I print and then start to draw and paint onto the canvas.

Each step in the process is a moment where human choice comes into play, the how and the why. I am involved at every point.

I see these pieces of mine in their own right. I didn’t see my photography like that before. I didn’t have enough knowledge of the form to have respect for what I could do with it.

These collected works show the range of my form, technique and content from where I’ve grown from and where I am heading within my practice. Each of these has been included in this survey for their bearing within my artistic canon. They each show a threshold.

A creator of dark fiction and graphic artwork, Travis is a multidisciplinary creator with a rich background in visual arts, performance, literature and Indigenous culture. Travis creates an extended universe of contemporary mythology drawing on a deep understanding of Gamilaroi lore, he brings to life new worlds within worlds, characters on the page, canvas and through large sculptural work to grow a new, evolving zeitgeist.

Travis’ work toys with the idea of an aspirational First Nations future through Indigenous Futurisms and the crucible arcs of our existence. Through exploring potential political, philosophical and metaphysical roads to a First Nations future Travis is able to have deep conversations around the meaning of sovereignty and how we get there.

Travis is also the Director of Awesome Black, the First Nations podcasting organisation and hosts the shows; Broriginals and Fear of a Blak Planet and is the executive producer of multiple shows. Travis has held multiple exhibitions and is a published writer in both print and digital mediums.

Join us for opening night of D/O.58 Thresholds

Thursday May 12th from 6pm-8pm

Thresholds will be on display from

May 11th through May 28th at Disorder Gallery