Troy Montes-Michie: Rock of Eye

September 23 - January 29,2022

From Contemporary Arts Museum Houston: "Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) is pleased to present Troy Montes-Michie: Rock of Eye, the first solo exhibition for the El Paso-born artist. Working in collage, drawing, painting, and sculpture, Troy Montes-Michie (b. 1985) engages Black consciousness, Latinx experience, intersectional identity, immigration, and queerness through assemblage and juxtaposition. Montes-Michie’s work was presented at CAMH in 2013 and 2019 through Outside the Lines and Stonewall 50 exhibitions, respectively. Troy Montes-Michie: Rock of Eye is an early-career survey, collecting the artist’s collages, drawings, and sculptures to draw the contours of body and place. To tailor a garment by “rock of eye” is to rely on the drape in the fitting process—that is, to rely on experience over mathematical measurement. Draping is a kind of drawing in space: a freehand, an intuition, a trust of materials. The exhibition expands from the series of work the artist exhibited at CAMH previously, which recasts found images of the Black male body, to include zoot suit sculptures. These recent textile works trace the social history and form of the garment, which was at the center of the 1943 attacks primarily on Mexican American, African American, and Filipino American youth in Los Angeles known as the Zoot Suit Riots. These sculptures feature zoot suits custom made by a tailor located in El Paso, who fits the garment to the artist’s measurements. CAMH’s presentation of the exhibition will feature a new addition: a 2022 collage piece that spans forty feet in length titled Was the Beautiful Woman in the Mirror of the Water You or Me?. The work stitches together disparate elements including catalogue pages, wire hangers, garment bags, and articles of clothing, all of which are overlaid with images of women donning zoot suits. This monumental piece is an ode to the Chicana matriarchs and blends the artist’s tailoring and collage skills. Montes-Michie’s practice reflects his experience growing up along the United States and Mexico border in El Paso, Texas. His works are studies in ambiguity around figuration and abstraction, fashion and visual arts, and portrayal of gender. The cuts and folds of patterning and mapping in his work have an astute focus on boundaries and transgression. “I’m excited to have my Rock of Eye traveling to my home state,” says artist Troy Montes-Michie. “Much of my work has been created at a distance, but continuously remembering the border community that raised me.” “CAMH is fortunate to have a longstanding relationship with Troy, initially showing his work in our Outside the Lines exhibition nearly a decade ago, followed more recently by Stonewall 50,” says CAMH’s Assistant Curator Patrcia Restrepo. “We strive to support rising voices in contemporary art robustly and throughout their careers. CAMH’s upcoming presentation of Troy’s first solo museum exhibition is a full circle moment almost ten years in the making.” By utilizing textiles, garments, and archival materals from newsprint to erotic magazines, Montes-Michie subverts dominant narratives by placing past and present in confrontation. Through his use of contrast patterning, a technique of camouflage, the artist investigates the ways in which bodies of marginalized communities are frequently erased, fetishized, idealized, and criminalized. With Rock of Eye, Montes-Michie’s stitches suture histories and geographies; they establish thresholds for crossing. His needle hits rock. Troy Montes-Michie: Rock of Eye is a collaboration between the Rivers Institute for Contemporary Art & Thought and California African American Museum (CAAM). The exhibition is curated by Andrea Andersson, Rivers Institute founding director and chief curator, with Jordan Amirkhani, curator, Rivers Institute, and Taylor Renee Aldridge, visual arts curator, CAAM. Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH)’s presentation is coordinated by Patricia Restrepo, Assistant Curator. About the Artist Troy Montes-Michie holds a BFA from the University of Texas at El Paso and an MFA from Yale School of Art. His works have recently been included in exhibitions at the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU (Richmond), The MAC (Belfast), The Shed (New York), The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), and Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. He is currently a Lecturer of Visual Arts in Program at Princeton University. About Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) presents extraordinary, thought-provoking arts programming and exhibitions to educate and inspire audiences nationally and internationally. Established in 1948, CAMH is one of the oldest non-collecting contemporary art museums in the country, and is internationally known for presenting pivotal and landmark work by artists recognized as the most important of the 20th and 21st centuries. CAMH’s mandate is to be present, to connect artists and audiences through the urgent issues of our time, and to adventurously promote the catalytic possibilities of contemporary art. CAMH’s programming, both in and beyond the Museum, is presented free to the public, and advocates for artists’ essential role in society. Support Troy Montes-Michie: Rock of Eye has been made possible by the patrons, benefactors and donors to CAMH’s Major Exhibition Fund: Chinhui Juhn and Eddie Allen, Sissy and Denny Kempner, MD Anderson Foundation, Rea Charitable Trust, Louisa Stude Sarofim, The Sarofim Foundation, and the Texas Commission on the Arts. Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is funded in part by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance. Houstonia Magazine is the exclusive media sponsor of CAMH’s presentation of Troy Montes-Michie: Rock of Eye."

On View: September 23, 2022 | 12-5 pm

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston - CAMH 5216 Montrose Boulevard
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