"I get a lot of inspiration from garbage that I find, whether it be tops that I pick up out of the bin at the Laundromat, or something that I saw on the side of the road and was so inspired that I had to stop the car and get it and put it in the trunk. There's something about getting something that is free that is appealing to me, for one. But then the things that people throw away...oftentimes they throw them away because they're old. I see these objects that have this patina to them, that have this obvious history. It's been loved and hated and loved again, and ultimately discarded. There's [sic] so many stories to be told within these objects. And oftentimes once they've been thrown away and you find them in the garbage, they're pale imitations of what they once were. And it's just sometimes very intriguing and exciting to see what these objects have become. And so I set them up and then make up my own stories about them."
– Trenton Doyle Hancock
Trenton Doyle Hancock’s semiautobiographical drawing-collages curl onto the floor loaded with words, multiple drawing styles, paint, fake fur and cut fabric. His overwhelming all-encompassing installations pull viewers in like a vortex. Through a personal narrative of his own design, Hancock tackles sticky subjects and addresses the conflict surrounding life, death, and the nature of good versus evil. The ongoing semiautobiographical saga he fabricates weaves allegory, word play, satire, and humor into an inventive, multimedia collage. Trenton Doyle Hancock’s art reveals an obsession with feelings and conveys associations that are personal and universal, factual and fictive. Creation myths, Bible stories, and the baser instincts of humanity instills an alternately comic and tragic tale of struggle and survival.
Hancock was born in 1974 in Oklahoma City, OK and raised in Paris, Texas. He earned his BFA from Texas A&M University, Commerce and his MFA from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University, Philadelphia. As an undergraduate at East Texas State University, Hancock studied drawings under Lee Baxter Davis, a leader of the cartoon-illustration movement, and painting under Texas artist, Michael Miller. At that time he familiarized himself with the work of graduates Gary Panter, an illustrator and Georganne Deen, a painter, and eventually decided after feeling torn between painting and illustration, that he could do both.
This conscious decision to fuse drawing with abstract expressionist painting/collage has resulted in Hancock’s acceptance into the 2000 and 2002 Whitney Biennial exhibitions, becoming one of the youngest artists in history to participate in such a prestigious review. Hancock has also been the subject of one-person exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, TX, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami. The Houston-based artist became the recipient of many rewards, those of which include the S.J. Wallace Truman Fund Prize in the 181st Annual Exhibition (2006), the Joyce Alexander Wein Award from Studio Museum in Harlem, NY, a grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation (1999), a Skowhegan Camille Hanks Cosby fellowship for African-American Artists, Maine (1997); and an Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Award from the Dallas Museum of Art, Texas. Hancock currently lives and works in Houston where he was also a 2002 Core Artist in Residence at the Glassell School of Art of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Influenced by the history of painting, especially Abstract Expressionism, Hancock transforms traditionally formal decisions—such as the use of color, language, and pattern—into opportunities to create new characters, develop sub-plots, and convey symbolic meaning. Hancock’s paintings often rework Biblical stories that the artist learned as a child from his family and local church community. In an interview with The Scotsman, Hancock discusses his sources of inspiration and influence: “There are a lot of ministers in my family and the women are even more intense about spirituality than the men. I hung out with my aunts and my mother, they were a big influence on me. Often I don’t have a biblical story in mind and then I realize I’ve just re-written the story of Noah or something” (Mansfield, Susan “Son of a preacher man,” The Scotsman). Hancock is surrounded with a sense of community filled with stories and music. These stories become valuable resources for his personal narratives such as characters like Loid and Painter. Hancock defines Loid as the very strict father energy that perceives the world in black and white. Painter is the spirit character with mothering energy. Wherever there is color within Hancock’s work, he notes that it is because of Painter’s presence. Hancock even goes on to say that his mother is the personal embodiment of these two characters as having the smiling face of Painter, but at the same time the sternness of Loid. Hancock’s prints, drawings, and collaged felt paintings also work together to tell the story of the Mounds—a group of mythical creatures that are the tragic protagonists of the artist’s unfolding narrative. These creatures, half human half plants, were the result of an ape-man masturbating on a field of flowers 50,000 yrs ago. In many of his other drawings, Hancock depicts human parts co-mingling with vibrant colorful plant forms. Each new work by Hancock is a contribution to the saga of the Mounds, portraying the birth, life, death, afterlife, and even dream states of these half-animal, half-plant creatures.
"I like to play with language, word-play and puns, alliteration and onomatopoeia, poetic devices within the work. Since the writing aspect of the work has become so much more important, I see fit to draw upon all those elements to get things done." Rememor with Membry (2001) displays exactly this. In a forest he pieces together on canvas, trees are entwined with the phrase REMEMOR WITH MEMBRY, forming an endless stream of roots and vines. Words become shapes while once recognizable forms simultaneously transform into abstract ones. Nature, like memory, appears as a place that is very much alive and ultimately untamable. Hancock’s application of acrylic and mixed media form a dense world in which the viewer is engulfed.
Painter and Loid Struggle for Soul Control (2001) is of a spiritual journey tied explicitly to autobiography. Composed of a cacophony of surfaces, shapes, colors, and materials, the work belongs to a larger comic book-inspired, fictional world of "the Legend," who Hancock has depicted as the recently deceased, stripped, mound figure hovering in the lower right hand corner of the composition. Fighting for the Legend's recently departed soul are, "Painter," represented by strokes of bright color, and "Loid," the black and white text that infiltrates the branches and trees. Through their struggle, Hancock represents more than just the triumph of good versus evil. Instead, he uses these abstracted superheroes to take us on an epic journey inside the workings of his myth-inspiring imagination and to share along the way his private personal battles and discoveries.
I,I,I,I, Etc ... (2002) is a colorful illustration of one of Hancock’s typical black and white striped Mound creatures nestled between vibrant variations of flowers. This would be a quaint picture if it were not for the multiple bloodshot eyes protruding from the Mounds upper body. Some might even say that Hancock’s color usage within his illustrations and drawings is slightly reminiscent of Dr. Seuss and other children’s books. His personal narrative at times humorous as it is serious, places his work at a highly imaginative and sophisticated level.
Trenton Doyle Hancock has developed work from internal sourcing his imagination and experiences in life. Growing up in a religious environment stemmed his interest in external sources like the Bible and gospel music. Hancock’s use of photographic material of family members, trash, and other odds and ends also provide him with inspiration. I can relate to Hancock in his interest in fusing painting and illustration into one work as it is something I like to incorporate within my own work. His use of color and implementation of abstract forms within his collages are also something that I am drawn to in my process of creating them. Hancock’s interest in trash and old and new forms is what I admire most about his working process and character.
In an interview with PBS’s art in the 21st century Hancock expresses his thoughts about the incorporation of personal narrative through his work." The idea of these beautiful stories- these archetypes of heroes going through toil and trouble and coming out all the better for it, or teaching us all a lesson not to go through...to take a different path-I wanted to incorporate that kind of thing into the way that I tell stories." Hancock combines mixed media and elaborate tales that connect passages of time from his childhood to present. Trenton Doyle Hancock is not only a fine artist, but also a fine storyteller.
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