Troy Montes-Michie: Rock of Eye

A zoot suit is never only a suit.

Troy Montes-Michie cuts, folds, stitches, and collages a visual history of dress, desire, and self-possession. Rock of Eye takes its title from a tailoring practice that trusts drape and experience over exact measurement—a fitting method that becomes an apt description of the artist’s own way of working.

Vintage erotic magazines, tailoring publications, found photographs, and sewing patterns move from portraiture into abstraction and landscape. The book considers Black and queer visibility without demanding that its subjects become fully available to the viewer. Montes-Michie’s El Paso upbringing—and his attention to borders, bodies, and the zoot suit—runs through every page.

Read this if… you’re interested in collage, fashion as social history, queer image-making, or artist’s books that reward close looking.

Essays by Andrea Andersson and Tina Campt, an interview by Brent Hayes Edwards, and an afterword by Cameron Shaw. Published by Siglio with the California African American Museum and the Rivers Institute.