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Travis Fitzgerald
Until Adwaita

September 22 - October 29, 2017
Opening Reception, September 22nd, 6-9pm


/He lived on a diet of wheat bran, carrots, lettuce, soaked gram, bread, grass, and salt//

Clawing at the carpet the dog rips and tears. Each strand of fabric is carefully dissected, pulled straight from the hole left by the last–methodically destroying what once was whole. Dust, puffs of fabric, and plastic are tossed in the sunlight, mixing with the open air. The layers recede, diminish, and vanish as each flower inlaid in the carpet wilts.

The rug, fraying wildly, is reduced to its original components – thread, wool, time. The dog admires its handiwork, taking special care to notice the soft undulations of thread bunching up around its outstretched paws. It sniffs, yawns, and starts again. Nails grind into the cloth, sit deep and pull away. Each time, a new truth is exposed – the wooden slats shine through clearer. Each petal disappears slowly, the weave of its backing shedding thinner and thinner still.

The dog breathes deep. The air smells of success.

The work in Until Adwaita poses questions about selfhood, regret, the passage of time, and the stories we tell ourselves. The domestic is met with the natural; the young mixed with the aged; the moribund with the lively. These disparities connect, cohere, and dissipate just as quickly. A bedraggled wrought fence stands, bent and broken, in a mound of sod. A child’s blanket dances alone. In paintings, sculptures, and textiles, totemic symbols and open voids stand next to one and other, awaiting, but never growing closer.

Travis Fitzgerald (b. 1987) is an artist, gallerist, and curator based in New York. He is the co-founder and Operations Director of American Medium. He ran Appendix Project Space in Portland, Oregon from 2010 until its closing and holds a BA from Wesleyan University. Until Adwaita is Fitzgerald’s first solo exhibition in New York.

Press for show: Brooklyn Rail