May 17, 2021

Miles Travis

Miles Travis was born and raised in The Woodlands, Texas, a city about 40 minutes north of Houston. His mother is from New York and his father from California; the two met and moved to Texas, settling in The Woodlands, where they have lived for around 27 years. Miles spent the first 18 years of his life there before leaving for college.

He came to the Dallas-Fort Worth area for school and, at the time of the interview, had lived in the region for four years. He recently graduated from the University of North Texas in Denton. Although he had always enjoyed creative expression through music, writing, and other activities, it was not until after his first year at UNT that he discovered his passion for the visual arts and began pursuing his practice as an artist.

Miles describes his artistic style as untraditional, recontextualizing the layering techniques of the old masters while subverting Western European conventions with his own vibrant colors and personal narrative. Working primarily in acrylic, he builds compositions through thin, washlike layers and carefully chosen limited palettes. His art investigates themes of time, memory, and peace, and he credits Judaism's emphasis on education and learning with fostering his curiosity. For the exhibit he presented Searching, part of a series called If Not Now When, which uses color and the symbolic qualities of hands to explore identity and his relationship to Judaism, hoping to encourage others to reflect on their own place in the world.

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