Jake Troyli: Slow Clap
moniquemeloche, 451 North Paulina Street
26 February–9 April 2022
Jake Troyli's graphic portraitures are surprisingly appealing despite their stark contents and subject matters, which explore the construction of otherness and the commodification of Black and Brown bodies enlisted to performance and labour.
Accordingly, Slow Clap draws from the artist's time playing division-one basketball to investigate the spectacle of sport, showing nude avatars engaged in acts that equally evoke celebration and violation.
Contending with nuances within set hierarchical systems, which can benefit participants just as they can constrain, the striking oil on canvas The Crowd Surfer (2021) shows a brown body gripped by six pink hands, held at the throat and hoisted into the air.