... troy mighty ...
It was back in the San Diego area, around the age of six, that Troy began drawing, largely because of a PBS show called “Secret City”. The host, Commander Mark, spent each show drawing with the child-based home audience, singing songs about shading, creating exciting new worlds where space creatures flew charming vehicles through their Dr. Suess-esque space towns. Troy spent countless hours drawing with Commander Mark, and carried into the rest of his life the interest that this developed in creating such worlds, through unthought-of scenes of perplexing hilarity.
Years later, at nineteen, Troy was introduced to the vast world of underground comics by a new and very influential friend. It was through these comics and graphic novels (especially those of Chester Brown, Julie Doucet, Robert Crumb, Daniel Clowes, and Chris Ware) that Troy began to understand where his own artistic interests might lie. Through the inspiration of this new friend, the incredible show fliers he’d created in his home town of Cleveland, and the humorously witty and challenging portrayals in these comics, Troy’s own artistic language and style began to fully develop.
Around this same time, Troy began playing more music, also largely due to the influence of friends (especially the ones who didn’t mind the racket of a newcomer learning an instrument!). The next few years passed by in Sacramento, and Troy’s musical and artistic abilities continued developing. He became involved in organizing music shows for the people. Basements, apartment buildings, even freeway overpasses acted as venues for touring and local bands not quite satisfied (or just too young) for the typical spots. Out of this organization sparked the desire to promote these shows in an exciting way. Troy had seen so many boring show posters stapled to telephone posts around town, depicting boring band name this and boring band name that in the same boring computer font on a boring sheet of paper, with no other images to liven things up. This was the greatest encouragement of all to bring his art to the people, and create exciting fliers that might make the public more intrigued about a show with bands they might never have heard of.
This began years of drawing and design, largely for the promotion of music. Show fliers, tour posters, cd and record covers, and t-shirt design were the focus of most of Troy’s artistic output during this time. He also began making work for exhibition, beginning with his first solo show in 2000.
Troy Mighty continues to create art for music promotion and exhibition, using a variety of mediums, including acrylics, pen and ink, pencil, and screen-printing.
