Troy Michie, 1985, lives and works in Brooklyn
Brick, 2014.
About:
Recently, Michie has been focusing specifically on the way that men of color are portrayed in pornographic material. His work is sexy, but also whip-smart. “The themes I’m exploring are the intersections of race and gender and the exotification of the black male body,” he notes. “A lot of the more recent works I’ve been doing are images of black men from pornography that are cut up and collaged. There are a lot of different layers, so I often sand a layer, or I’ll do a layer of décollage or acrylic paint or use a lot of tape in my work.”
Beloved, 2014.
Fresh Prince, 2014.
Shadow, 2013.
Because of the way that the erotic gaze puts specific body parts into hyper focus, collage, with its penchant for dissection, is the perfect medium to take a hard look at which artistic language is being used to eroticize the male form. “I like that Troy’s collages create strange gestures, his X-acto knife carving out an arching back, an open mouth, a hand reaching out as if to feed,” Chadsey praises. “Vintage pornography becomes personal, intimate.”
I AM a MAN, 2014.
Michie credits artists like Mark Bradford and writers like Audre Lorde and Octavia Butler as influences. “I just saw a really great show in Chelsea with [late queer artist] Paul Thek. That was pretty amazing,” he adds. “I look a lot at socialist artwork. A lot of the Russian constructivists and before that Mexican muralists.”(quote from article in Next Magazine)