Recently our friend Chad Kolcze had a chat with Gold Coast based visual artist Troy Archer, here’s the story of Troy’s passion for art life and other things.
Your profile as a visual artist has been steadily growing over the years, can you tell us where, how, what, with has lead the steady incline?
To be honest, i think that if there was were any specific things that lead me to my cataclysmic rise to artistic fame and its associated infinite fortune, i’m pretty sure it’s these 3 things;
1. I stopped looking at other people’s work for inspiration, I started looking inside myself to connect with what I wanted to expel. From there I developed a style of my own.
2. Retrospect Gallery. Bree and Alberto actually just let me do what I wanted to do instead of trying to get me to change my style. They supported me immensely and let me discover myself as an artist, which I am eternally thankful for.
3. I stopped drinking alcohol. Just think about how much time that freed up for me.
Can you define your style?
I can actually. The subject matter is almost solely focused on interesting faces, alot of them are of the elderly. I find myself drawing older generations alot for a couple of reasons. One of them is that i’ve always had a heart condition and I always have had the feeling i’ll die young, morbid but true even right now. Yuck. Anyway, i’ve been very close, felt myself slipping away, had the doctor holding my eyelids open telling me to stay awake and it actually felt quite amazing.
I draw with biro and in recent times i’ve juxtaposed the use of blue biro with a reluctant interference of colour. I use the word reluctant because I really wanted to keep my medium to biro exclusively but I needed to represent memory in the elderly, and colour seemed to do that sentiment justice. The shattered colour that I have been adding is really time consuming, not unlike the biro, so the whole thing becomes somewhat of a sedative experience, actually, maybe it’s really boring, either way I don’t care, it helps me sleep. I have a graphics background so my pieces are always really balanced and centred and clean.
I hear you are a featured presenter at an upcoming SOLD OUT Analogue Digital Creative Conference in May. Can you tell us a little more about this?
Yes, I can’t wait. For some reason I love speaking to big groups of people. The conference is on the Sunshine Coast and it’s for creative people to come and hear the true life tales of the rich and creatively obese (and me), this conference will be my second chance. Last time I was supposed to speak at the Gold Coast conference but I had a heart melt-down the night before so I was flat out in bed right when I should have been getting tomatoes thrown at me by the audience. I have a pacemaker now so you can be guaranteed i’ll be there on stage, stinkin’ up the room.
Who does Troy Archer look up to and admire, and where does he draw his inspiration from?
I look up to people that have been able to get all the way through life, achieve happiness, maintain health and build enough financial stability to enjoy the twilight years with the people they love. I also really look up to people that live with disabilities, they’re fucking amazing people. Much more human than I will hopefully ever have to be.
What do you make of this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson; ‘We are, ourselves, creations. And we, in turn, are meant to continue creativity by being creative ourselves’.
It’s silly and states the obvious through its silliness. I would have liked it much more if it read; “We are, ourselves, big red kangaroos. And we, in turn, continue to bounce upon our muscular tails over your fences and into your paddocks”.
Thanks for having me, take care, love your life and cherish every day. Troy
Words with thanks to – Â Chad Kolcze