CEDAR CITY – Friday night will kick off a 7-week art exhibit featuring landscape paintings by Cedar City artist Travis Humphreys showcasing scenery unique to “Our Backyard” at the Frontier Homestead State Park Museum, 635 N. Main St. in Cedar City.
From 7-9 p.m., visitors are invited to tour the museum for a free sneak peek at the display, according to a press release issued by Park Manager Todd Prince.
The 35-piece show, that was hand-framed by the artist himself, will feature a rotating exhibition that allows return patrons to find new pieces to connect to on their visits.
Familiar places from Duck Creek and Otter Creek to the red rocks of Sand Hollow, Humphreys said, will strike a chord with anyone who has ever spent time playing in the surrounding hillsides.
“They will be going, ‘Oh, I know where that is,’” He said. “And, lava rocks or Mammoth Creek … it’s all within probably 100 miles of our house.”
Cedar City is not only home, Humphreys said, but an easy place to travel from to reach almost any location along a southwestern series of national parks called The Grand Circle. The uniquely diverse terrain surrounding the community within 50 to 100 miles in any direction offers a variety of inspirational opportunities, Humphreys said.
A graduate of Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration, the Black Hills, Idaho, native moved to Cedar City in 1999, he said, and fell in love with the landscape. The show pays homage to the local audience, Humphreys said, because it depicts places where there are emotional connections between the viewer and the scene.
“It is a little bit just to respect the people around here,” Humphreys said. “Who paints our mountains and our streams?
“I want to be known for that – I want to be the guy who is the Cedar City landscape painter … I love our canyon and I like Navajo lake, and just, the things that are on our mountain – they’re unique,” He added.
Humphreys is a seasoned artist whose first gallery invite came in 1988, the press release stated, following that year’s Annual Western Art Show and Sale at The Phippen Museum in Prescott, Arizona, where he won awards for his watercolor work.
Though formally trained in fine art, Humpreys said, the lessons from his uncle that began at the age of 13 were what really impacted his artistic prowess. The classes, combined with natural skill, launched his career at an early age, winning him awards throughout his high school years.
Humphreys works in a variety of mediums, but he enjoys acrylic and oil the most, according to the press release. Though landscape is what he is known for, the release said, he has built a reputation creating one-of-a-kind murals for interior designers and decorators.
“I did an underwater mural scene for Webster Orthodontics,” Humphreys said.
His works range from miniature to large scale, according to the release.
The gallery space is a designated area for the Frontier Homestead State Park to use when it creates subject-specific exhibitions, Prince said, but when the space is not being used in that way the museum opens it up to the community for showing opportunities.
“I call the exhibit space public access space,” Prince said. “What it does is gives artists an opportunity to exhibit publicly and to sell their work … this gives developing artists an opportunity to show their work, and also established artists an opportunity to do a little something special.”
The Travis Humphreys “Our Backyard” exhibit runs until Oct. 31.
Resources
- Frontier Homestead State Park Museum | 635 N. Main St., Cedar City
- Museum hours | Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Admission | $3 per person
- Contact | Telephone 435-586-9290 | Website | Utah state parks Web page |
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