Misspent Youth, 1998-2002, 2010
Underexposed photographs from youth, thread and resin on gatorboard glyph. 24 x 18 inches. Collaboration with Troy Gua for ‘Meet Greet Rinse Repeat.’
Troy designed and hand-crafted nearly fifty of these glyphs.
He then handed them out to artists to work with. After a few months, he collected them, coated many of them with resin, and in March 2010 hung the lot in a truly epic group show at Monarch Contemporary.
When I received my blank glyph, I was perplexed with it, at first. For nearly two months, I merely looked at it, hanging on a bedroom wall. I’d been making postcard collages and was interested in taking this to a larger scale, but couldn’t see it coming together on that strange canvas.
Then one day I came across a box of old 4×6 photographs, taken in my late teens. Sifting through them, looking for gems to share with friends, I was struck by how many of the shots were poorly exposed and considered throwing out the majority. With all of them set aside, however, I was struck with their consistency in color and feel. Despite coming from so many different rolls and taken on so many different occasions, their similarities were what shown through.
So I spread them out, arranged them. The pieces came together alarmingly well, so I set about slicing them and re-assembling them with my new-found love for sewing. Aside from my pleasure at having tackled an abstract canvas with such an abstract visual assembly, I am also pleased with the implied narrative and how it reflects much of my personal growth.
In addition to being a part of the collaborative group, I worked with Troy to put together an exhibition book, an 8×10″ full color collection of all 50 works in the show.
Visit troygua.com to see the full series and much more from the prolific Troy Gua.
