Trenton Doyle Hancock: Skin and Bones, 20 Years of Drawing at Virginia MOCA
This fall, Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) hosts the final stop in an exhibition entitled Trenton Doyle Hancock: Skin and Bones, 20 Years of Drawing. This exhibition, which originated at the Contemporary Art Museum Houston (CAMH), celebrates Hancock’s use of drawing in his prolific studio practice from 1998 to 2014. It has and continues to receive outstanding reviews from media sources such as the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post and the New York Times.
True to the spirit of this exhibition, the artist visited the museum for the installation. His facile command of line and mark-making fills the gallery spaces in a variety of presentations including sketchbooks and collage. Hancock uses drawing to explore the concepts and narratives that are the foundation of his work. The exhibition is separated into distinct bodies of work that have occupied his attention from the past two decades. The five thematic sections include: Epidemic (Early sketches and work from childhood to college), Moundish (Highlights the artist’s iconic and includes drawings from his epic narrative), The Studio Floor (Ten drawings that brings together comics and cartoons), From the Mirror (Self-portraiture), The Liminal Room (Stand-alone works that feature the artist’s experiments with drawing as a medium and practice).
Trenton Doyle Hancock: Skin and Bones, 20 Years of Drawing. Installation view at Virginia MOCA. Photograph by Glen McClure
Skin and Bones allows for greater understanding of one artist’s process. It allows the visitor a long lens through the arc of time that has been Hancock’s development as an artist. Cross-connections of themes that evolve, transform, and lead to further exploration. Hancock created his superhero avatar, Torpedo Boy, when he was still a child. The nascent emergence of Torpedo Boy is on view in the exhibition. Torpedo Boy does not disappear in Hancock’s mature artistic adulthood. Instead, the character resurfaces as a much more complex, nuanced figure, including the foibles and paradoxes that lurk within all of us. Audiences rarely have the opportunity to explore the maturation and fruition of a mature contemporary voice.
Trenton Doyle Hancock: Skin and Bones, 20 Years of Drawing. Installation view at Virginia MOCA. Photograph by Glen McClure
Trenton Doyle Hancock: Skin and Bones, 20 Years of Drawing. Installation view at Virginia MOCA. Photograph by Glen McClure
Hancock actively engaged in the process of inspiring deep examination. He worked closely with Valerie Cassel Oliver, Senior Curator at CAMH to develop the exhibition and with the exhibition team at MOCA. He lent his mark to the walls of the museum, creating the skeletal Mound for its walls and advocating for the visual senses to be filled to saturation. MOCA is pleased to present this exhibition until December 31st, 2015.
Trenton Doyle Hancock: Skin and Bones, 20 Years of Drawing is organized by the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and is supported by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and other supporters of CAMH.
By Heather Hakimzadeh, Curator at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art
