Troyli & Wahi discuss Fine Line and Drawing as not only a medium but a practice, driven by compulsion and access. In Fine Line, Troyli presents his traditional drawing practice for the first time, moving his focus from his formal painting mastery to the place where the work normally begins. The artist discusses the decision to pull back the color, while also introducing new collage techniques that allow him to emphasize the ways in which his avatars teeter on lines of hypervulnerability and empowerment, revealing the absurdities that exist within a performance of self. 

The conversation establishes drawing as the foundational, compulsive engine of Troyli's practice, tracing its roots to the accessible, politically charged humor of his childhood influences, such as Mad Magazine and political cartoons. Troyli describes these drawings as immediate, visceral ideas that are later distilled into his more atmospheric paintings, with the large-scale work in the show acting as a bridge between the two mediums. Central to the discussion is his use of a repeated, nude self-portrait as a malleable avatar, which he manipulates to explore the performance of identity, the commodification of the Black body, and the elastic tension between vulnerability and power within systems of spectacle and labor.

Inspired by the theatrical absurdity of Northern Renaissance painting, Troyli crafts worlds with a beautiful, polished sheen that is deliberately undermined by a lurking menace, implied violence, and a cast of recurring characters—like "competitive mourners" and disembodied, puppeteering hands—that critique contemporary sociopolitics and cognitive dissonance. The conversation reveals the artist’s coded visual language, using narrative vignettes and stark black-and-white compositions to force a confrontation with themes of surveillance, artifice, and the fragmented self, all while looking ahead to his upcoming museum survey and first foray into animation.