Trenton Doyle Hancock: skin and bones, 20 years of drawing
On View in Contemporary Arts Museum Houston: April 26 – August 3, 2014
For almost two decades, Trenton Doyle Hancock has developed an epic narrative surrounding the “Mounds” and a cast of colorful—and often not so colorful—characters who populate a wildly fantastic, invented landscape. The artist’s use of vivid imagery and mythology has not only earned him national and international recognition, but has also revealed a fascination with the foundation of his practice. What emerges upon further examination is a wide-range of influences including comics, graphic novels, cartoons, music, and film. While Hancock’s paintings have become the focal point for investigation, his drawings–both discrete and monumental– have not been explored in depth before now.
Trenton Doyle Hancock: Skin & Bones, 20 Years of Drawing is the first in depth examination of Hancock’s extensive body of drawings, collages, and works on paper. It features more than seventy works of art as well as a collection of the artist’s ephemera such as notebooks, sketchbooks, and models. Comprehensive in scope, this survey includes works from 1998 to 2014, ostensibly chronicling the foundation for the artist’s prolific career. The survey also provides a glimpse into the evolution of Hancock’s idiosyncratic vision beginning in his childhood. Ephemera such as early childhood drawings, notebooks, sketchpads, and the artist’s comic strip that ran in a college newspaper will be featured to allow viewers to see the genesis of the artist’s mythology as well as the evolution of his practice.
Skin & Bones features a range of the artist’s presentation of drawings from graphite on paper to paper affixed to canvas, from the use of collage to the use of wall as an expansive plane for monumental works. Inherent in the presentation of these drawings is the exploration of the artist’s conceptual framework and the narratives that manifest throughout his bodies of work. The exhibition presents a more focused concentration on his use of line and mark making as well as his approach to the tradition of drawing and his ability to implode that tradition through mechanical dexterity and conceptual weight.