Glimpse Inside the Mind of Artist Trenton Doyle Hancock at the Studio Museum in Harlem
The surreally beautiful and cartoonish world of Houston-based painter and draftsman Trenton Doyle Hancock comes to life in the artist’s new show, “Skin and Bones: 20 Years of Drawing” at the Studio Museum in Harlem. The show is one of those rare career retrospectives in which the artist has made use of every single piece of space in the gallery: huge paintings and drawings render the walls, glass tables encased with Doyle’s sketches litter the floors, and all negative space on the walls is filled with messages and jokes and one-liners hand-drawn by the artist. The show serves as a looking glass into a profoundly unique mind.
The last 20 years of Hancock’s career are given voice in the exhibition through five sections. Hancock’s early work is displayed in a section entitled “Epidemic,” showcasing drawings rendered as early as when Hancock was 10-years-old to when he was an undergraduate and working as a cartoonist at his school newspaper. At the time, Hancock was considering a professional career in cartoons and that influence is palpable in even his most recent works.
“If this painting didn’t work out, then I wanted to do cartoons,” says Hancock. “I had a whole portfolio ready to do newspapers and things, but painting took precedence. But eventually the cartoons came back.”
On Narrative
“What’s written about my characters and the names that I’ve assigned to these creatures is just one layer of a seven-layer cake. I don’t want the work to fall too far to the left or too far to the right; I want it to exist on a fine line. I want the work to be open where people can find their ways into the work and then find their ways out.”
On Magic and the Influence of Stanley Whitney
“When I got to Tyler it was the first time I heard art being talked about in terms of magic. When we were invited to [Stanley]’s studio, we would see these paintings that look like they had fallen from the sky. It was like, “This guy standing right here next to me and talking made this?” I get along with Stanley so well because he’s never changed, he’s always been the same guy.”
On Art’s Relation to Mental Health
“If you go outside or on your computer, things are so fast. How do you slow things down and really ask those questions in the same way that they were asked 2,000 years ago? Painting requires you to slow down and de-fragment and figure things out.”
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