Artists speak: a monthly feature that introduces contemporary artists through their words and artwork.

Trenton Doyle Hancock

Born                   1974 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Lives and Works        Houston, Texas
Media and Materials    drawing, painting, collage, text, installation
Influences             childhood toys, cartoons and comic books,
                       family, superheroes, Philip Guston, Biblical
                       stories, music, thrift stores, abstract art

About the Artist

Hancock has been drawing since the age of two. Hancock's prints, drawings, and collaged felt paintings tell the story of the Mounds--a group of mythical creatures that are at the center of the artist's unfolding narrative. Each new work by Hancock is a contribution to the story of the Mounds. Additional characters such as Torpedo Boy, Painter, and Loid serve as the cast who populate the saga of the Mounds. Making work that is both representational and abstract, Hancock often incorporates words and wordplay in his work, presenting multiple levels of meaning and interpretation.

"I guess I should explain a little about what Mounds are. Mounds are these half-human half-plant mutants that came to life about fifty thousand years ago ... The Mounds came from a series of drawings that I was doing when I was an undergraduate. That was the name I would give to groups of things. It's like a mound of information. I came up with the idea of having a story as a kind of framework to plug elements into, to let the characters have a place to exist and to grow, and to give con text to the different sensibilities that the characters have."

"I wanted to do a body of work that focused on the garbage and pieces of paper and scraps of canvas I had lying around on my studio floor ... The paintings are just filled to the brim with all kinds of color-bits of canvas that have opaque colors painted on them, different colors of felt and fur, and just other bits of trash that are all quite colorful. In a way. these paintings are like an explosion ... and are what I actually call color flashes ... I've always been drawn to color, but it has to be necessary--to have some sort of meaning--if I'm going to use it."

"I like to play with language, wordplay and puns, alliteration a77d onomatopoeia, poetic devices within a work. I like to pick language that has a certain kind of cadence, and words that have double meanings, or maybe words that, if you lake a letter away, will be an opposite. I shift letters around, and sometimes words explode and it's about each individual letter. And sometimes they become hybrids and form a new letter altogether. Ferronious and the Monk is what I call a dream flash. That's how Mounds dream--in big colorful landscapes filled with floating objects and symbols."

Discussion Questions

* How would you describe the work Ferronious and the Monk to someone who had never seen it before?

* How are letters and words used in Ferronious and the Monk and how do they relate to the other compositional shapes and images?

* Trenton talks about this image is a dream flash of a Mound. How has Trenton chosen materials and arranged them to convey this idea?

* Does the work Ferronious and the Monk tell a story? If so, what story does it tell?

* What is the relationship between representational imagery and abstract imagery in Ferronious and the Monk, in Trenton's images of Mounds, and in the work Strudi Flooo?

* How do the titles of Trenton's works change your understanding of the work, its content, and its meaning?

Activities

* Make a collection of found images and objects from different sources and use them to create a representational and an abstract self-portrait. Compare and contrast how each portrait represents different aspects of yourself.

* Cut out letters and words randomly from magazines or newspapers. Construct a poem with your found words and letters and then illustrate it using mixed media.

* Create or find a phrase or slogan that represents you. Using that phrase, rearrange the letters to spell other words or phrases and incorporate them into a visual collage using both abstract and representational imagery.

* Create your own collection of characters. Think about what identity each character will represent, for example, strength, sadness, or joy. Create each character using a different color, pattern, or material that relates to its specific identity.

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