Trenton Doyle Hancock
Trenton Doyle Handcock is a multi-media artist. He’s created sculptors, videos, paintings, collages, and plays to explore his own created mythology. Hancock’s own influences are also what makes his work so interesting. He takes from his own life and experiences, as well from pop culture. It’s easy to see the influence of comics, cartoons, toys, and more in his work. Some things he pulls from the world are more complex and personal though. Like a recurring pattern that stretches across years of work that was originally taken from his grandmother’s house’s floor.
Schlep and Screw, Knowledge Rental Pawn Exchange Service, 2017 photo taken by James Cohan
These two pieces Den from 2012 and Schlep and Screw, 2017 both contain this pattern. The Den more closely represents the tile, as it also has the same coloring. It is more subtle in the later work appearing in the background of the piece. This is significant to me for two main reasons. The first being is it’s one of the many symbols throughout his works that works as almost a signature. I could know it was a work of his without anyone telling me because it has that specific patterning woven into it in some form. The other reason is that throughout my education there has always been an underlying implication to only ever take from accepted forms of art. Reputable artists, and older art movements. We’ve always been discouraged from taking from comics, tv, pop culture, and production. And I think for a lot of us looking at a cheap production made tiling, that’s most likely in hundreds of everyday homes, we would not consider it art, or worth our time.
Yes, the tile has significance to the artist, he has an emotional connection to it because it’s a piece of his childhood. That said, something having personal importance to an artist does not immediately translate to it having importance to the viewer. It’s how Handcock uses it, how it translates into his complex works, and how prominent it is across his art that draws the viewer in.
His vast form of media immediately draws me to him as well. Layering and interlacing flattened imagery and patterns into complex paintings, drawings, and sculptures. He never seems to let go of ideas either. Instead bringing imagery and materials from old works into new pieces. Taking older ideas and using them over and over until they grow into something new.