Bio:
Troy Dugas is an artist living and working in Lafayette, Louisiana. He received a BFA from the University of Louisiana (1994) and an MFA from Pratt Institute in New York (1998). His work is in several public collections across the country including the Frederick Wiesman Foundation in Los Angeles, The New Orleans Museum of Art, and the West Collection in Pennsylvania. He has received awards from the Pollack-Krasner Foundation, the Louisiana Division of the Arts, and completed a residency at the McColl Center for Art and Innovation in North Carolina. In the last 25 years his work has progressed from meticulous collages made from unused product labels, to mixed media acrylic collages, to most recently fiber based artworks. Troy is represented by the Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans.
Statement:
Motifs and imagery rooted in the history of textiles and indigenous folk art are reimagined through my work as a form of self discovery. These sources offer aesthetic forms to explore and combine to create contemporary fiber works that evoke a precarious balance between strength and vulnerability. The unexpected relationships in the work reveal to me a powerful tension between an innocent, beautiful naivety and our relationship with nature, mortality, and the ethereal. Combining hooked fabric, punched yarn, embroidery, found objects, rope, and fringe, I create narratives that express my adoration and feelings of connectedness to the visual representations, cultures, and techniques I reference.