Troy Passey lives, teaches, and works in Boise, Idaho. Passey received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Utah State University, where he also studied Art History, in 1993. Passey later received his Master of Arts degree in English from Boise State University in 1997. Passey’s work has been included in four Idaho Triennials. He was a recipient of an Idaho Commission on the Arts Fellowship, and was an inaugural Artist in Residence at the James Castle House in Boise, ID. Passey has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout the American West, including at the Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID; Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Jackson, WY; Boise Contemporary Theater, Boise, ID; Herrett Center, Twin Falls, ID; Eagle Performing Arts Center, Eagle, ID; Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Ketchum, ID; and the Ogle Gallery, Portland, OR. Passey’s work has also been shown in group shows in Jackson Hole, Los Angeles, Boise, Ketchum, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, and Miami, among other locations. In 2023, Passey completed Is Where the Angels Are, four site-specific memorials to those lost during Covid-19 at St Alphonsus Medical Centers located in Boise, ID; Nampa, ID; Ontario, OR; and Baker City, OR. He also has completed KITH & KIN, a collection of sculptures at the James Castle House.
Troy Passey
TROY PASSEY is an interdisciplinary artist who merges idea with image in his text-based art. He creates conceptual pieces through playful, elemental compositions that utilize words as a visual–in addition to a written–language. In these works, words operate in many ways; some words or phrases become figurative, emerging as horizon lines or objects themselves, while others whimsically name, or intuitively explain and narrate the objects drawn by Passey. He considers the titles of his works the key texts to be read, crediting writers ranging from Emily Dickinson to Leonard Cohen, from Rainer Maria Rilke to Robert Frost, to The Cure.