Who is Troy Pierce?
Airbrush Action Magazine
by Gary Worthington
winter/spring 2018
Quite Simply...Troy Pierce is "The Man."
When I first started my career in the airbrush industry in the late 1980's, Troy's legend had already started to build. But when the September-October 1988 issue of Airbrush Action magazine started to hit the streets, it was permanently etched into history.
A year later, Troy was also highlighted in Airbrush Action"s November- December issue. In that issue both Fort Walton Beach, where I worked, and Panama City Beach, Florida (which are about an hour apart) were featured in an article called A Tale of Two Beaches. This was my first real look at Troy's artwork and I was hooked.
The Last Article
Airbrush Action Magazine has and always will be a big part of my life. From that very first issue with Olivia's Zebra Girl .... to being featured in the last online printing. This magazine is gone now and with it ...30 years of publication, but back issues will always remain!
Gary Worthington is an incredible talent of the craft of airbrush and to be honored by him in this article is everything.
Thank you my friend!
I am pleased to finally share this with all artist out there as a back story to my career and inspirations in the arts.
Best Artistic Wishes,
Troy
marilyn in art
Marilyn in the 80's
My search for the perfect portrait began in the 1980's. I would make several trips to a local book store to find any source on Marilyn to use as a reference. I was teaching myself to use the airbrush and portraiture was top on the list. One of the many books was the first edition of Marilyn In Art.
Marilyn Mon Amour
In the 1990's, I finally found the courage to paint an image that I held onto for years from another source book on Marilyn and produced this large hyper real image on illustration board.
Marilyn in the 2000's
In 2005, I received an email from Roger G. Taylor. He was publishing a new edition of Marilyn In Art 2 and had noticed my painting of Marilyn Monroe on an earlier web site. He was asking permission use my painting in this new book and wanted to know if I knew about his 1980's first edition. I shared this story of my quest to paint Marilyn's image and treasured his early book as reference material.
I'm proud to say the painting is included within this book and my love of Marilyn has been fulfilled.
Beauty #4
SOLARFAST
"Art PoP: She was the Original. Bold. Sassy. Rebellious."
Airbrush Action Magazine
May/June 2014
Troy Pierce, a professional airbrush artist, captures the beauty of Edie Sedgwick using Jacquard’s Airbrush Color and then makes prints of her portrait using SolarFast dye in this article. This collage of portraits on different surfaces, and with different colors, exemplifies Pop Art and shows off the versatility of SolarFast.
Jacquard Paints and Solarfast Article
Pop Art encompasses many different art styles, yet most people only think about Andy Warhol’s soup cans or the Brillo boxes. Often we forget to recognize the realism. I once had the privilege to gaze into Rosen- quist’s large scale panels of blended realism that ex- isted alongside Warhol’s screen-printed Marilyns. Pop Art is the kind of art that reflects culture, and its special power is how it causes life to suddenly begin reflecting itself in art. Even classical and surrealist painters such as Dali jumped into the movement. Sometimes the image, be it painted or printed, is just a means to an end. More recently, artists such as Lady Gaga have resurrected this idea of mirroring, which is so central to Pop Art. With this idea in the front of my mind, I’m finding inspiration and breaking moulds. She was the original. Bold. Sassy. Rebellious. Edie Sedgwick was a Superstar Factory muse, 1960s mod, the inspiration for Warhol’s art, and films have been made about the rise and fall of this art cult icon.