Troy Montes-Michie: Rock of Eye - (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Stitches and sutures: tracing the body and landscape in Troy Montes-Michie's collages

To tailor a garment by "rock of eye" is to rely on the drape--on experience over mathematical measurement--in the fitting process. It is a kind of drawing in space--a freehand, an intuition, a trust of materials. Rock of Eye, published on the occasion of Troy Montes-Michie's (born 1985) solo exhibition at the California African American Museum, is a collection of the artist's collages, drawings, and found and woven images sourced from vintage erotic magazines, French tailoring magazines, found photographs and other materials. These materials are familiar from Montes-Michie's recent large-scale paintings and collages that center on the Black male body and his series that traces the social history and form of the zoot suit. Troy Montes-Michie was born in El Paso and his practice reflects his experience growing up along the US/Mexico border. This book is a study in ambiguity between portraiture and landscape; his are the cuts and folds of patterning and mapping. In Rock of Eye, Montes-Michie's stitches suture histories and geographies; they establish thresholds for crossing; his needle hits rock. Including essays by Tina Campt and editor Andrea Andersson, with an interview by Brent Edwards, Rock of Eye is a tactile and sensuous artist's book recalling the form of fabric swatch books and affirming that collage is an art of selection.

Review Quotes

By painting clothes over these archival nude images, we see them intimately rather than explicitly, stepping away from the fetishized Black male body that had been left on display in the magazines they originated in.--Adam Lee "Hyperallergic"

In the artist's hands, the images' sitters are rendered more complex through elisions and additions that cause them to double and seem slightly imperceptible.--Alex Greenberger "ARTnews"

Montes-Michie's critical gestures of veiling are both protective and defiant. Desire isn't banished from the frame, and this is the joyful knot of the work. He beholds his subjects with tenderness and dresses them in their rebellious threads.--Laura Larson "Photo Eye"

Revels in contradiction, ambivalence, beauty, queerness, time, and place.--Rasheeda Saka "Alta"