Two Exhibitions

by Natalie Rinehart

Troy Dugas: Falstaff, 2009

CIGAR, BOURBON, BEER and various other consumer product labels are the primary medium for Troy Dugas” work. The artist recycles these often-discarded commercial signifiers, transforming them into elaborate tapestries comprised of intricate patterns, color and overall compositional play. Dugas says of his work, “At first glance my work is very serious, very organized. But when you investigate it, I think it”s kind of funny. Not as serious as it first appears. I think I”m creating abstract minimal art but with a more grassroots relatable sensibility.” Curiously, the artist engages in an almost traditional mode of domestic endeavor – Dugas acknowledges, “My work is heavily influenced by quilting and crochet.”

One particularly beautiful piece with a local reference is Falstaff. Constructed from beer labels and measuring sixty by sixty inches, the predominantly yellow piece emerges like a brilliant and poetic mandala. Labels from the local Falstaff brewery, are carefully arranged in a painstaking, near perfect symmetry. Other works such as Perfection in Red and Be Green metamorphize various labels with their text, into intense linear minimal color fields. With these ironically organic constructions the artist completes the final commercial evolution of the work, where the art is the sole remaining object left for consumable potential.