Opening on January 10th, 2026 at Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles, California is artist Travis Lampe's delightful solo exhibition, "The Ham-Fisted Coping Mechanism."

Bursting with mischievous humor and existential absurdity, Lampe’s latest body of work invites viewers into a chaotic carnival of emotion, where coping takes on both hilarious and unexpectedly poignant forms. Expect the riot of colorful characters, dripping in calamity, that only Lampe can deliver.

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.”

Lampe grew up in small-town rural Kansas, 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 Betty 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.”