reflections
2005
3 photographs
8.5” x 11”

[maze]
2003-on going
mixed media on paper
8.5” x 11”

A collaborative project. Autographs are symbols.

“I once was working at a library and a woman called up and talked about all these autographs she had of all these stars. She said she didn’t like Britney Spears because she wasn’t nice to her when she got her autograph because Britney was paranoid about her selling it. She went on and on, I think I listened to her for about an hour and a half just going uh-ha, uh-ha. She was so excited about these autographs, it was a quest for her to get these famous people’s signatures. I think that’s art but I’m not really sure.”

And So It Goes
2001
mixed media
4’ x 6’, 1’ x 1’ pedestal

During the And So It Goes show reception, sponsored by The Canon Theory Project, you could hear a loud airplane sound. It was the fan running on Travs Lee’s artwork. The show took 12 seperate artists and had them translate the phrase And So It Goes. Travis Lee, even early in his visual career started exploring language. He took And So It Goes and deconstructed it. When he put it back together he got ‘Dan Otis’s Ego.’ He looked up Dan Otis on the internet and found an article about a Dan Otis owning a Bowlus-Dupont trailer. Travis then looked up Bowlus and found that they built airplanes and built the Spirit of St Louis. From the Spirit of St. Louis he found Charles Lindbergh. Fron there he connected to the Chas. A. Lindbergh, Jr. kidnapping, the son of Col. Chas. A. Lindbergh. From the plane came the fan and the airplane sound. And So It Goes is perhaps about how ideas develop and steamroll. Travis Lee was able to take the phrase And So It Goes and connect it to the kidnapping of Chas. A. Linbergh.

found photograph series
2000 - present
4” x 6”

Travis Lee has a talent for finding photographs, if that could be considered a talent. This is one of two of the same pictures found in front of an ATM machine.

“I thought they looked like a body part, but I couldn’t really tell. After I looked at them I looked all around me to see if someone was looking at me and see if I was going to take them or something. I didn’t see anyone so I put them in my pocket.”

<link for images>

2003
black and white photograph
8” x 10”

Chix Nuggets
2002
ceramic
average size 3” x 2”

Forced Entry
2001
plastic in box, broken glass
16” x 10” x 3”

Pinky
2000
oil on canvas
4’ x 6’

Pinky is a very important work in the Travis Lee Wiggins catalog. It was during this painting that he decided to 'make it ugly' and try to do the opposite of what he thought would make it a good painting. After this painting personal taste became an idea rather than something to live by.

2001
oil on canvas, paintbrush
30” x 40”

These two paintings are essentially about the relationship of the viewer and the artist. Travis Lee painted a painting and wasn’t happy with it. Being in oil paint, it wouldn’t have dried for weeks. He took an ordinary house painting brush and completely obliterated every mark,
every brushstroke, until the colors blended to one pure color. “I was thinking how the viewer wouldn’t see the painting before, I would leave
them nothing. And that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to justify it with philosophy and expect that they would ‘get it.’ I was happy if they liked the pure color, but I understood if they didn’t investigate and see the seperate colors on the brush used to make it, which I set utop the work when it was completed. It was sort of like suicide. I killed the painting and the gun was left on top of it.” This painting, among other
things, also explores the topic of artwork being a completely egotistical activity only for the artist and not for the viewer. “I don’t think I
would have explored the concept of how much to give the viewer unless I could go all the way and give them nothing.” This work became a performance, and the leftover object a relic.

Key to a Lock that Doesn’t Exist
2001
key on pedestal
1’ x 1’ pedestal on ground

“I once locked my key in a locker I had. I
thought there was something very beautiful
about having to break the lock to get the key
that would open it. By a small chance of
misplacement I made both objects completely useless and unfuncitonal.”

KABOOM!
2002
mixed media
1.5’ x 1’ each

2001
mixed media on watercolor paper
22” x 30”

Some of Travis Lee’s work is about the process and visual image. Only. In this project, he
couldn’t get anything to “work.” He eventually went outside and started to burn the painting. It gave it a charred look. It was what he wanted.

“This was the first piece I framed. I had been working years on artwork not really thinking
about how they were going to be hung, and then I put this in a frame and I thought it was just
fabulous. I learned that if anything looks good on the floor, it will look great on a frame on the
wall. This was one of those pieces that I became attached to. It took me to a place I had never
been. I became more an observer, watching the painting take form in front of me. Hating it
all the way and wanting to burn it till the end. I did. And somehow that finished it.”

Hammer & Nail
2003
glazed ceramic

3 pounds 4 ounces of Art
conceived 2001, produced 2003
wrapped paper over canvas
20” x 30”

“I had thought of this idea that what if you could sell or produce art by the pound rather than the image. Everyone would be obsessed with how much things weigh rather than the aesthetics of what they looked like. Oh you bought a new toaster? How much does it weigh?”

You Should See the Stains in My Shower!!
2000
watercolor and ink on paper
22” x 30”

Self-Identification= Spiritual Perspective (Western man is circled for you as a clue to find meaning)
2003
mixed media on tabletop
2.5’ x 2.5’

Travis Lee, explaining this painting said that he set up an equation of where man fits himself in compared to his religion and animal- like qualities. The beast is animal-like qualities, the religion, his spirituality, the man himself. In the example circled, if man puts religion above himself than man will look at himself as animal-like, never being able to attain his religion. Wherever you put these things in your equation is your spirtual perspective and how you identifyyourself.

This Would Kill My Roomate
2002
milk in a plastic container
8” x 20”

One of Travis Lee’s roomates in college became
alergic to milk and tomatoes at a late age and
had a great impact on his roomate’s life. “He
would get hives and his face would swell up
all the time.”