Troy West
Artist's statement:
"I think of art making as honest work. Society needs it. Without art we are too materialistic. For me it is a source of fulfillment. I am a believer in emptying myself to become surrounded by an environment – to allow the ambience in. I do not preconceive before I work. I remain open to new ideas and experiences from start to finish. With regard to my series of outdoor steel sculptures, the materials are gleaned from scrap yards and what the sea washes ashore and from debris people throw away, - society’s dregs. The work becomes a part of the landscape, and nature’s elements become part of the work. The adversarial relationship between man’s desires and nature’s needs fuels much of my work. In my large charcoal drawings of mills and factory buildings, often abandon, I visualize the activity that once lived within these buildings. I get emotional about these industrial architectural structures since so many around the country are being demolished. Each of these drawings is made on-site, with no camera or photographic image as reference, - just the paper, the charcoal, and me. It is in being with the presence of these powerful edifices of labor that inspire. As an architect, I seek sustainable simple green solutions for projects from civic and community designs to small sturdy well insulated structures bathed in natural light at home in their settings, whether in nature or dense urban fabrics."
Educator, architect and artist Troy West has guest lectured extensively on his art and architecture at universities in the United States and abroad. He received the Bachelor and Masters of Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University, and later joined the faculty and founded ARCHITECTURE 2001, one of the first university based community design centers in the country. He is one of the original seven architects selected to form the new School of Architecture at New Jersey Institute of Technology, and has maintained his architecture practice since 1963.
