Troy Abbott

Troy Abbott (American, born 1967) is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily in digital media. He graduated from the University of Florida in 1990 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in drawing, but gravitated toward digital art. His work has been exhibited in the United States and Europe and is held in many private collections around the world.

In 2002 Abbott made his first birdcage, inspired by the classic film Blade Runner and its vision of humans and robots coexisting almost interchangeably. As the idea developed he began making more and more cages from 2006, giving up his job running a nightclub in Fort Lauderdale to devote himself entirely to this exploration of the real and the digital. The pieces turn on the idea of freedom: the birds sit in cages with the doors open, yet they never leave.

Abbott scours thrift stores and vintage shops for cages he feels have personality, then pairs them with films of real birds, often reusing his subjects, who sit on their perches with the occasional jerk of movement. The birds are sometimes color coordinated to their cages but always feel like natural inhabitants that might have been there for years, and the quiet footage draws attention to the cages, which are works of art in themselves. As the practice has progressed he has taken to exposing the circuitry that gives the birds life, and he now incorporates 3D-printed components, video projection and chrome or gold finishes, setting the digital element against the vintage character of the cages. The result is work that sits quaint and quiet at first glance but carries a subtle commentary on the nature of reality.

Abbott is currently focused on the interaction and relationships between humans and digital technology, using digital manufacturing processes to explore and document the signatures of modern technology in the act of creating. He lives and works in Miami, Florida.