Downtown Los Angeles’ Corey Helford Gallery (CHG) is proud to announce its next solo show The ham-fisted coping mechanism, featuring new works from Chicago-based artist, illustrator, and toymaker Travis Lampe. Premiering Saturday, January 10th in the Main Gallery, the show will be on view through February 14th.

Lampe grew up in small-town rural America, soaking in the rubber-hose animation style of early Mickey Mouse cartoons. His work builds a bizarre, elbow-less universe full of sinister trees, floppy skeletons, and mystical beavers. The artist mainly paints in acrylic but occasionally branches into small sculptures using epoxy resin, sewn canvas, or papier-mâché. Lampe shrugs off what he does as “pretty dumb,” though plenty is going on beneath the surface if you bother to look.

The topsy-turvy world portrayed in Lampe's paintings is a trip out of pandemia. Inspired by an old-timey aesthetic, from Steamboat Willie to Bette Boop and Dr. Seuss, Lampe describes his work as "a mish-mosh of those old-timey influences with some Duccio-inspired mountains and the inevitable light-switch nose.”

Regarding his new works, Lampe shares, “You know that feeling when people have broken into your house and they're smashing and burning everything, and you run to your panic room to take stock and realize the only way you have to fight the intruders is by painting a bunch of comical pictures because it's the only skill you possess? That's this show.”

Featuring acrylic paintings on wood panel, as well as sculptures and a one-of-a-kind artwork on a fully-functional guitar, The ham-fisted coping mechanism follows Lampe’s last two major solo shows at CHG, Small time buffoonist (Apr. 2024), All signs point to no (Aug. 2022), and his mini-solos as part of the gallery’s seven-artist show, The magnificent seven (Feb. 2021), and a three-artist show (Feb. 2019). The artist has started sharing work-in-progress videos, providing a sneak peek into some of his new works featured in the upcoming show (watch here, here, and here).