Mounds vs. Vegans
In drawings and paintings, Trenton Doyle Hancock pits archetypes against each other
- By Amy Crawford
- Smithsonian magazine, October 2007, Subscribe
One of the youngest artists ever included in the Whitney Museum of American Art's Biennial exhibition (in both 2000 and 2002), Trenton Doyle Hancock, 33, incorporates comic-book and surreal themes into his satirical, intricately detailed drawings and paintings. In the ongoing epic story that sweeps through the Houston-based artist's vibrant works, “Mounds"—the good guys—face off against evil “Vegans."
How would you describe your work?
Naughty. Nice. Unpredictable. I make paintings, but the format into which I put the paintings encompasses drawing, sculpture and narration. So it has a large scope.
You've been compared to Hieronymus Bosch, Salvador Dali, the poet William Blake—do you count them among your influences?
I would definitely list those guys. I'm more interested in Max Ernst than Dali. [Ernst's] work seems genuinely stranger to me. I get a lot of inspiration, actually, from thrift-store paintings by people who don't know how to paint.
Your stepfather was a Baptist minister. How did that upbringing affect your art?
For a long time I didn't want anything to do with that past. I wanted to forget about it. Then I realized, whoa, there's so much beauty in that language, even though it's often a lot of doom and gloom. I think I thrive off the lingering repression from that, and I think that feeds my art. Why can't we as humans do these certain things? Where does morality actually end, and does it have a place in art? My art asks those questions. It plays out through the narratives and the characters and the wars that ensue.
Who are the Mounds?
The Mounds are my stand-in for the earth. They're part plant, part animal. Mounds are very passive. They just are.
And the Vegans?
They're the opposition to these Mound characters. Whereas Mounds get bigger and bigger, Vegans are obsessed with getting smaller and smaller. They see the Mounds as a threat to that purity, and they are always plotting to destroy Mound-kind.
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Comments (1)
THis is a very cool man he is still young and already has art in a museum. Plus after looking at some of the art he does a good jod at making the objects look bigger. If I were going to be an artist i would truly look up to this man.
Posted by Junior Mintz on September 22,2011 | 08:01 AM