
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Step and Screw: The Star of Code Switching, 2020
Acrylic, graphite, plastic tops, and paper collage on canvas
84 x 84 in.
213.4 x 213.4 cm
JCG11636
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Step and Screw: The Star of Code Switching, 2020
Acrylic, graphite, plastic tops, and paper collage on canvas
84 x 84 in.
213.4 x 213.4 cm
JCG11636
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Bringback Condiments: Mustard, Mayo, and Special Sauce, 2020
Acrylic, graphite, plastic tops, faux fur, paper collage on canvas
90 x 132 in.
228.6 x 335.3 cm
JCG11781
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Bringback Condiments: Mustard, Mayo, and Special Sauce, 2020
Detail
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Bringback Condiments: Ketchup, 2020
Acrylic, graphite, plastic tops, faux fur, paper collage on canvas
90 x 132 in.
228.6 x 335.3 cm
JCG11634
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Bringback Condiments: Ketchup, 2020
Detail
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Becoming the Toymaker, Phase 11 of 41: Attack Me With Her Lovely Strange Candy, 2020
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
24 x 24 in.
61 x 61 cm
JCG11642
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
It's Just a Matter of Trust at this Point (for Chadwick), 2020
Acrylic, graphite, plastic tops, and paper collage on canvas
60 x 60 in.
152.4 x 152.4 cm
JCG11635
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
It's Just a Matter of Trust at this Point (for Chadwick), 2020
Detail
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Yielded She Did and Shielded She Did, 2019
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
48 x 48 in.
121.9 x 121.9 cm.
JCG11116
Installation view, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Mind of the Mound: Critical Mass, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, 2019
Installation view, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Mind of the Mound: Critical Mass, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, 2019
Installation view, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Mind of the Mound: Critical Mass, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, 2019
Installation view, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Mind of the Mound: Critical Mass, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, 2019
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Mound # 1, The Legend and the Exposed Nerve, 2019
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
108 x 96 in.
274 x 244 cm.
JCG10441
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Becoming the Toymaker: Phase 13B of 41, or Me Pretending to be Ben Gardner, 2017
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
30 x 30 x 5 in.
76.2 x 76.2 x 12.7 cm
JCG9433
Installation view, Contemporary Focus: Trenton Doyle Hancock, Menil Collection, Houston, TX, January 26 - May 19, 2019
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Epidemic! Presents: Step and Screw!, 2014
Ink and acrylic on paper and mat board with excised lettering and gesso
Installation view, Contemporary Focus: Trenton Doyle Hancock, Menil Collection, Houston, TX, January 26 - May 19, 2019
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Step and Screw Part Too Soon Underneath a Bloody Red Moon, 2018
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
90 x 132 x 5 in.
228.6 x 335.3 x 12.7 cm
JCG10287
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Step and Screw #18-1, the Handoff, 2015
Mixed media on canvas
60 x 60 in.
152.4 x 152.4 cm
JCG7748
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
SKUM: Just Beneath the Skin, 2018
Acrylic, graphite, plastic tops, and paper collage on canvas
60 x 60 x 4 in.
152.4 x 152.4 x 10.2 cm
JCG9611
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
BALLMAT, 2018
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
24 x 36 x 6 in.
61.0 x 91.4 x 15.2 cm
JCG9762
Installation view, Trenton Doyle Hancock, From a Black Son to a White Man to a Black Woman and Back Again, Temple Contemporary at the Tyler School of Art, May 10 - July 27, 2018
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Moundverse Infants Torpedoboy Doll, 2018
Vinyl, factory applied paint, artist designed
packaging, and risograph booklet
Doll: 14 inches in height
Package: 16 x 7.5 x 5.5 inches
JCG10425
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Good Vegan Progression #5, 2007
Hand-cut synthetic, natural, and digitally printed fabric layered and stitched on fire-retardant theater curtain
216 x 648 in.
548.6 x 1645.9 cm
JCG9760
Installation view, Trenton Doyle Hancock, The Re-Evolving Door to the Moundverse, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, January 19 - April 22, 2018
Installation view, Trenton Doyle Hancock, The Re-Evolving Door to the Moundverse, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, January 19 - April 22, 2018
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Coloration Coronation, 2016
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
90 x 132 in.
228.6 x 335.3 cm
JCG8848
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Split Per Tonality, 2016
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
72 x 108 in.
182.9 x 274.3 cm
JCG8849
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Wars and Rumors Thereof, 2016
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
72 x 72 in.
182.9 x 182.9 cm
JCG8850
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Big Tooth Clock, 2016
Mixed media on canvas
24 x 24 x 1 1/2 in.
61 x 61 x 3.8 cm
JCG8447
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
The Grey Remains of a Friendship Scarred, 2016
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
30 x 24 x 1 1/2 in.
76.2 x 61 x 3.8 cm
JCG8448
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
8 Back Icon Series: Torpedoboy- Protector of the Mounds, No. 5185, 2016
Mixed media on canvas
66 x 38 in.
167.6 x 96.5 cm
JCG8444
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
8 Back Icon Series: Trenton Doyle Hancock- Creator of the Moundverse, No. 5174,
2016
Mixed media on canvas
66 x 38 in.
167.6 x 96.5 cm
JCG8445
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Wars and Rumors Thereof, a study, 2016
Graphite on paper
24 x 18 in.
61 x 45.7 cm
JCG8820
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Undom's Conundrum, a study, 2016
Graphite and ink on paper
18 x 23 in.
45.7 x 58.4 cm
JCG8821
Installation view, Trenton Doyle Hancock: Skin and Bones, 20 Years of Drawing, Studio Museum in Harlem, March 26 - June 28, 2015
Installation view, Trenton Doyle Hancock: Skin and Bones, 20 Years of Drawing, Studio Museum in Harlem, March 26 - June 28, 2015
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Studio Floor: Encounter with Prostitute 1, 2002
Graphite and acrylic on paper
23 x 21 in.
58.4 x 53.3 cm
JCG7053
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Mound #1 the Legend, 2015
Mixed media sculpture and 8" x 8" acrylic painting on canvas
27 x 16 x 16 in.
68.6 x 40.6 x 40.6 cm
Edition of 15
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Head Tread, 2015
Acrylic on canvas
10 x 8 in.
25.4 x 20.3 cm
JCG8101
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Concerto, 2015
Acrylic on canvas
8 x 10 in.
20.3 x 25.4 cm
JCG8100
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Letting, 2015
Acrylic on canvas
9 x 12 in.
22.9 x 30.5 cm
JCG8099
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Without Moving the Apocalypse, 2013
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
53 x 36 in.
134.6 x 91.4 cm
JCG6698
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
The Den, 2012
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
84 x 132 x 3 in.
213.4 x 335.3 x 7.6 cm
JCG6081
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Quinton Trenton, 2012
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
18 x 14 in.
45.7 x 35.6 cm
JCG6029
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
The Loss of Lies Reossifies the Cross of Eyes, 2012
Acrylic and mixed media on canva
18 x 12 in.
45.7 x 30.5 cm
JCG5627
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Mold, 2010
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
60 x 60 in.
152.4 x 152.4 cm
JCG5745
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Fucht Law, 2010
Lithography, collage, pigment stained paper, pigmented paper pulp and STPI handmade paper
59 x 66 in.
149.9 x 167.6 cm
JCG4684
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Hot Coals in Soul, 2010
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
84 x 114 in.
213.4 x 289.6 cm
JCG5743
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Aboard, 2009
Screen print, collage, stencil shaped paper pulp and STPI handmade paper
59 x 66 1/8 in.
149.9 x 168 cm
JCG5308
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Blue Bald Voice Effects, 2008
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
60 1/2 x 61 x 2 in.
153.7 x 154.9 x 5.1 cm
JCG3940
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Vegans and Mounds in the Forest
Production still from Ballet Austin's Cult of Color: Call to Color A collaboration by choreographer and Ballet Austin artistic director Stephen Mills, visual artist Trenton Doyle Hancock and composer Graham Reynolds
Photo: Tony Spielberg
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Moundmeat 3, 2002
Acrylic on canvas
10 x 14 in.
25.4 x 35.6 cm
JCG6068
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
A Yank and a Tug or a Tug and a Yank, 2002
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
12 x 9 in.
30.5 x 22.9 cm
JCG1263
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
The Legend is in Trouble, 2001
mixed media on canvas
104 x 120 1/2 in.
164.2 x 306.1 cm
JCG0786
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Ferroneous & The Monk, 1999
Mixed media on felt
102 x 114 1/2 in.
259.08 x 290.83 cm
JCG0939
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK
Coonbear, The Legend, 1997
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
60 x 60 in.
152.4 x 152.4 cm
JCG9840
Trenton Doyle Hancock, The Exchange, 2020. Film by Greg Poole. Produced by James Cohan, 2020.
For almost two decades, Trenton Doyle Hancock has been constructing his own fantastical narrative that continues to develop and inform his prolific artistic output. Part fictional, part autobiographical, Hancock’s work pulls from his own personal experience, art historical canon, comics and superheroes, pulp fiction, and myriad pop culture references, resulting in a complex amalgamation of characters and plots possessing universal concepts of light and dark, good and evil, and all the grey in between.
In this film, artist Trenton Doyle Hancock confronts issues of race and power. By harnessing painting, graphic novels and art history, he builds a world around his avatar Torpedo Boy in an ongoing narrative of superheroes and villains.
In this episode, Trenton Doyle Hancock discusses the materiality at play throughout his practice and his experimental self-portraits.
Watch Trenton Doyle Hancock discuss the genesis of the Exchange paintings, which feature his superhero alter ego Torpedo Boy facing off against the buffoonish Klansmen that populated Philip Guston’s paintings.
Harlem, New York
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas
Kansas City, Missouri
Sarasota, Florida
Arlington, TX
For almost two decades, Trenton Doyle Hancock has been constructing his own fantastical narrative that continues to develop and inform his prolific artistic output. Part fictional, part autobiographical, Hancock’s work pulls from his own personal experience, art historical canon, comics and superheroes, pulp fiction, and myriad pop culture references, resulting in a complex amalgamation of characters and plots possessing universal concepts of light and dark, good and evil, and all the grey in between.
Hancock transforms traditionally formal decisions—such as his use of color, language, and pattern—into opportunities to create new characters, develop sub-plots and convey symbolic meaning. Hancock’s works are suffused with personal mythology presented at an operatic scale, often reinterpreting Biblical stories that the artist learned as a child from his family and local church community. His exuberant and subversive narratives employ a variety of cultural tropes, ranging in tone from comic-strip superhero battles to medieval morality plays and influenced in style by Hieronymus Bosch, Max Ernst, Henry Darger, Philip Guston and R. Crumb. Text embedded within the paintings and drawings both drives the narrative and acts as a central visual component. The resulting sprawling installations spill beyond the canvas edges and onto gallery walls.
As a whole, Hancock’s highly developed cast of characters acts out a complex mythological battle, creating an elaborate cosmology that embodies his unique aesthetic ideals, musings on color, language, emotions and ultimately, good versus evil. Hancock’s mythology has also been translated through performance, even onto the stage in an original ballet, Cult of Color: Call to Color, commissioned by Ballet Austin, and through site-specific murals for the Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, TX, and at the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, WA.
Trenton Doyle Hancock was born in 1974 in Oklahoma City, OK. Raised in Paris, Texas, Hancock earned his BFA from Texas A&M University, Commerce, and his MFA from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University, Philadelphia. In November 2020, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston unveiled Color Flash for Chat and Chew, Paris Texas in Seventy-Two, Hancock’s monumental tapestry commission, which will remain on permanent display in the Museum’s new Kinder Building. In 2019, a major exhibition of his work, Mind of the Mound: Critical Mass, opened at MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA. In 2014, his retrospective, Skin & Bones: 20 Years of Drawing, at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston traveled to Akron Art Museum, OH; Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; and Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, VA.
Hancock was featured in the 2000 and 2002 Whitney Biennial exhibitions, at the time becoming one of the youngest artists in history to participate in the prestigious survey. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions including Locust Projects, Miami, FL; Temple Contemporary, Philadelphia, PA; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, MO; Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL; Weatherspoon Museum, Greensboro, NC; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. TX; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, FL; Institute for Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; Olympic Sculpture Park at the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA; Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh; and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Hancock’s work is in the permanent collections of institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Brooklyn Museum; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Dallas Museum of Art; Menil Collection, Houston; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI; Morgan Library & Museum, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; Akron Art Museum; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; and il Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea, Trento, Italy.