Radio Silence – Rupert Travis

In Ōtautahi Christchurch based painter Rupert Travis’ latest exhibition of paintings Radio Silence, ambiguous scenes are painted with a dream-like, timeless quality. Travis journeys the borders of narrative inference and abstract mark making, working into his supports a sensibility that is both elegant and mysterious.

I like to create moments, or pockets, of layers. Finding interesting mistakes and then working with them. It’s like when you sand back the walls on a house and you see every layer that came before.
—Rupert Travis 2026

By removing obvious indicators of time period, identity and location Travis creates a new obscured context. One that relates more to the painted object and the relationships between figurative elements of the painting and how it is painted.

That same stripping back extends beyond the imagery and into the surface quality, composition and colouration of the artworks. Travis places his viewer close to the moment of mark making. A generous rawness, perhaps open-endedness, that allows the viewer to journey into the works with their own interpretations.

I think of the compositions as rarely ever stagnant. There’s something narratively that has happened or is about to happen that has resulted in the scene that is being depicted… Does a work exist only within the moment that is being depicted, or is there something else that we’re not privy to?
—Rupert Travis 2026

Read more about this body of work in our City Art Reader interview.