Company is proud to present Black on the Face of the Moon, a solo exhibition by Troy Montes Michie, on view from March 13 through April 26, 2025. For his third solo exhibition at the gallery, Michie reimagines the family album, drawing from the tradition of scrapbooking to examine the ways in which memory and history are constructed and preserved. By collaging personal artifacts with found photographs, and seminal artworks, Michie disrupts conventional modes of representation and amplifies voices often omitted from established archives.

Michie began this series in 2022 while researching the papers of Harlem Renaissance artist Richmond Barthé at the Amistad Research Archive in New Orleans. Inspired by Barthé’s fragmented scrapbook—marked by its missing photographs—Michie blends his own images, drawings, andcorrespondences into a rich tapestry of meaning. By pairing family photographs with provocative erotic imagery, he specifically delves into the unspoken tensions surrounding queer desire and the intricate dynamics of the family as a reflection of identity.

Michie’s exploration delves into the physicality of his work, using simulated bronzed textures crafted from paper and thread to build layered surfaces that challenge conventional perceptions. By drawing on elements of camouflage theory, he applies various mediums that simultaneously conceal and reveal his subjects, fostering an adversarial image that disrupts straightforward interpretation. This visual tension invites viewers to question what is seen versus what remains obscured. His meticulous process—sewing, cutting, gluing, and weaving—echoes the fragmented assembly of a scrapbook, yet also serves as an act of disidentification. Rather than reinforcing familiar narratives, Michie reconfigures memory and interpretation into a tactile archive that resists easy categorization, offering a space for self-reflection and the discovery of alternate identities.

The exhibition’s design heightens this notion. The works are displayed within a meticulously constructed “room within a room,” positioned at the center of the gallery. This liminal environment subtly echoes the historical function of the living room, a space that evolved from the front parlor—once a site of transition where deceased family members were laid out for viewing before a funeral. It becomes a threshold between worlds, neither fully real nor entirely unconscious. Simultaneously, the room gestures toward the legacy of the Harmon Foundation’s Fifth Exhibition, The Negro and Art, which showcased the talents of Harlem Renaissance artists and redefined Black representation in art. Here, recollection lingers, forming an uncanny atmosphere where the past and present collide, and viewers navigate the shifting terrain of portrayal and erasure. By reimagining both the family album and the gallery space itself, Michie transforms the act of viewing into an experience of excavation—unearthing the unseen and reassembling what was thought lost.

Troy Montes Michie (b. 1985, El Paso, TX) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His recent solo exhibitions include Rock of Eye at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and the California African American Museum, Los Angeles (both 2022), as well as Dishwater Holds No Images at Company Gallery, New York (2022). Michie has participated in group exhibitions at institutions such as the Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles; Frist Art Museum, Nashville; ICA Los Angeles; Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts; The Momentary, Arkansas; Philbrook Museum of Art, Oklahoma; Kunsthal KAdE, Netherlands; The MAC Belfast, Ireland; The Shed, New York; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; New Museum, New York; The Artist’s Institute, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, New York. His work was also featured in the 2019 Whitney Biennial.

He has received awards and residencies from institutions including Recess Art, the Emerging Artist Grant, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. His work is held in numerous public collections, including the Philbrook Museum (OK), Whitney Museum of American Art (NY), RISD Museum (RI), Ulster Museum (Northern Ireland), and the Zabludowicz Collection (London). Montes Michie is a Lecturer in Visual Arts at Princeton University.