Vertical Portraits: Troy Lee
What’s in a name? Multitudes — if you’re Troy Lee.
Troy, whose breakthrough solo showcase ‘We From the Heavens’ runs at Vertical Gallery through Saturday, March 29, previously exhibited in our space under the alias Troy Scat. You may have seen his contributions to Vertical group shows like 2021’s ‘#INK,’ its 2022 sequel and 2024’s 11-year anniversary celebration, where the Troy Scat signature adorned lush, sensual portraits of men wreathed in flowers and women draped in nothing at all.
“Troy Scat was my rebel artist's name,” Troy tells Vertical. “I had some beef with my dad. We didn't always see eye to eye, and I got into a lot of trouble. At one point, my dad was like ‘You ruined my name’ and stuff like that. So I wanted to change my name to the worst name that I could think of. I chose ‘Scat’ because it could mean jazz, like a vocal performance, or it could mean cow dung. For a while, I had that name just out of spite.”
Make no mistake, however: Troy’s father, a minister on Chicago’s South Side, is no villain in his son’s story. In fact, he’s directly responsible for steering 15-year-old Troy into the Little Black Pearl-sponsored after-school art program where he met painter, muralist and longtime mentor Hebru Brantley.
Troy’s relationship with his father continues to improve and evolve all these years later, thanks in part to the soul-searching that accompanied the creation of ‘We From the Heavens,’ which examines the perceptions and realities confronting Black American males across the generations — how they’re seen in the media, and how they see themselves in the mirror.
“Now that I’m older, I'm able to look at him as a human man, and step outside of looking at him as just a dad,” Troy says. “It ties in with this body of work, where I'm taking a step back and looking at people for who they are — the circumstances that they're in, and what they're doing to exist and survive.”
The Troy Scat moniker has ceased to be, however.
“Lee is my middle name, and it's also my dad's middle name, and it's also my brother's middle name. So I decided to change my name to Troy Lee, because that's more fitting of who I am, and where I come from,” Troy says. “I'm not feeling so spiteful anymore.”