Trenton Doyle Hancock

Growing up in a Christian household in Texas, artist Trenton Doyle Hancock was immersed in the myths and narratives that he found while reading The Bible. Couple these narratives with his love of comic books, toys and the Masters of the Universe series and one is able to see the pool of imagery and ideologies that helped shape Hancock's own mythical world. "If you look at the grouping of the stories and belief systems that I learned from growing up, I wanted to take them apply them to my own art project based around a series of myths and symbols." Through his prints, drawings, painting, collages and even ballet, Hancock has created an ongoing narrative involving a group of mythical creatures that live and die in the Tolkienesque underworld that he created. Within his universe, there are Vegans - small ant-like creatures that live in the underworld and militantly hate meat. There are Mounds - hairy mountainous creatures that are rooted in the Earth. There's a handful of supporting character's like Torpedo Boy, Painter and Lloyd, who frequently appear to help drive the story of good guys vs. evil forward. And, like any epic saga, there are plots and subplots that involve murder, drama and changing ideologies that evolve with the artist's work. "I feel it's important to have this narrative coupled with paintings because it's something I haven't really seen before in the fine art world. I mean painters throughout history used narratives, even the abstract expressionists did, but I wanted to take it to a different place. I want to tell explicit stories and have them be major components of the work in order to create a new hybrid conversation." Trenton was recently commissioned as one of the artists to do mural work in the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium. His work is part of the collection at many museums, including The Brooklyn Museum, MoMA, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and The Whitney. He was part of the PBS Series Art 21 and is represented by James Cohan Gallery in New York.