Project for Empty Space is pleased to present the solo exhibition Fine line by 2025 Artist In Residence Jake Troyli, open to the public from September 10th, 2025, to February 28, 2026, at PES at 800 Broad Street, Newark, NJ.

A series of monochromatic drawings juxtaposed with two murals, one of which will be interactive, Fine line is a unique change of pace for Troyli who is known for his grand paintings with smooth, saturated, bold colors. The drawings, inspired by his love for political cartoons and MAD magazine, honor the technique that serves as the foundation for his visual practice. Fine line is the first exhibition where Troyli’s drawings are the focal point and shown as their own body of work. The figures teeter on a fine line, vibrating between hypervulnerability and empowerment as they move through the drawn vignettes. Troyli considers the figures self-portraits, elastic avatars that he can manipulate, bend, and pose with full agency. Placed in settings in which they hold varying degrees of power, Troyli’s figures challenge the reality of shape-shifting and code-switching. Using humor and formal techniques, Troyli opens accessible windows into larger conceptual considerations. Viewers are invited to contemplate the conscious and subconscious practice of constructing and manipulating one’s identity, and further examine what that means in a global social context. Fine Line calls into question the performance of self and what it means to be on display.

Troyli notes: “I didn’t grow up going to museums and galleries. I grew up looking at MAD magazine and political cartoons, and so drawing has always been at the center of my practice. There’s something special in their immediacy, the 1 to 1 transmission of an idea or an image onto a surface, removed from the labor and history of making a painting. Paying homage to the comic strips and cartoons that helped form my visual language, I was thinking a lot about how the drawings could read like frames in an abstracted storyboard. Illustrated and presented non-sequentially, but still all part of an overarching timeline, the “self” at the center of the narrative contorts and shifts itself into new roles and positions throughout this body of work.”

For the two large-scale works in the show, Jake Troyli employs the technical rigour of Northern Renaissance paintings, which are important to his practice. Reminiscent of medieval tapestries, the large-scale works are maximalist and complex, composed of many smaller vignettes that encourage thoughtful viewership, and are echoed and recontextualized in the smaller drawings. The interactive piece serves as a response to Project for Empty Space’s mission of accessibility and community. The organization’s Artist In Residency program exists to uplift artists interested in social engagement. Troyli’s mural does just that and acts as a formal exercise for the artist that is visually exciting for both himself and the viewers who choose to interact with it.