The Curator's Eye

Ch-ch-ch-changes | Troy Gua, painter

selected by Greg Lundgren, independent curator/co-owner of The Hideout

The Brains and Beauty, acrylic and resin on canvas,  48 x 48 x 1.5 inches

I met Troy Gua soon after The Hideout opened; he approached me about getting his work (then really smart representational oil on canvas) on the wall.  We sold some pieces, but what was most interesting to me was watching his style change, watching him experiment and explore. After those first pieces he went in a completely opposite direction, into minimalist abstract painting. More recently he is creating overlapped portraits, often of celebrities.

For these he will use resin as a way of giving his subject dimension and layering, putting down a layer of paint or color, then putting down clear resin and then paint on top of that, then another layer . . . building up these layers that separate yet overlap.

The Davids, acrylic and resin on canvas,  48 x 48 x 1.5 inches

Sometimes he’ll make playful correlations between famous celebrities from the past and present: like King Tut and Michael Jackson in “The Boy King of Pop.” He’ll also overlap images of a person (like David Bowie) at age twenty-five, then at, say, sixty. The work makes you see how the physical form of one person changes over time.

I think what thrills me about Troy Gua is that I know he is not done. This is one incarnation. Six months from now he will be at another stage. — Greg Lundgren

ARTIST'S STATEMENT:

About two years ago I quit my crappy job working for my brother (which I do not recommend — and I don’t just mean working for your relatives, I mean my brother specifically: bad, bad idea). I’ve been working my arse off [painting] ever since. I want my work to etch itself into the viewers’ minds, to be stamped onto their brains. Forever. Does that sound too aggressive? Oh well. — Troy Gua, from an interview with Joey Veltkamp