John Trobaugh

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Caravaggio

Date, Medium

This is part of a self portrait series. I took hundreds of digital images of myself nude. Then with photoshop I recombined the images into a unified form. These self-portraits symbolize the psychological process of integrating fragmented parts of my personality [a result of childhood psychological trauma].

John Trobaugh was born in Lansing, Michigan in 1968. He studied photography at The University of Alabama at Birmingham and received his BFA in 1996 with honors. He went on to do graduate studies at The School of Visual Arts in their Photography and Related media program in 1997. After returning to Birmingham, he taught courses in photography and computer graphics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and worked as a commercial graphic design artist. In 2002 he received his MA and this past June received his Masters in Fine Art from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He is currently teaching Digital Art and Photography part time at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Montevallo. Drawings that started from photocopies of his body as an undergraduate have evolved into digital collages from multiple digital self-portraits forged into unity using art historical references. His most recent series, called Double Duty, are photographs are using the 12 dolls to make social commentary. Trobaughs photographs uncannily portray human likeness and gesture. In Fall 2003, as new faculty at Shelton State Community College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, he was asked to show his work in the schools two galleries. After being approved and his work hung in the gallery, his work was ordered removed from the galleries by the president of the college. The college told Trobaugh his work was too dangerous to allow in the galleries. His photographs have since been published on the cover of Art Papers and in The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Washington Post, The Advocate and several local and regional newspapers. Richard Meyer, Chair of the Art Department at The University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California, spoke about his work at various national conferences and a presentation in The Smithsonian National Gallery and was the author of several articles including Art Papers.