WORK ON PAPER
DRAWING AND INSTALLATION
TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK:
THE WAYWARD THINKER
Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Sat 10 Feb-Sun 8 Apr
Fifty thousand years ago an ape man ejaculated into a field of flowers. His act culminated in the creation of the Mounds: part-human, part-plant mutants that have taken over one of the many parallel universes in artist Trenton Doyle Hancock’s psyche, and which now threaten to spill into physical form within the walls of the Fruitmarket. This young artist’s fictive progeny arrive in the form of obsessive drawings, paintings and installations that often sprawl from wall to ceiling, while Hancock has been known to deprive himself of enough sleep to snooze on the gallery floor through the entire opening of his own shows. His sleeping beauty performances reveal the deadened body of the artist left amidst the enticing phantasmagoria of his mind - writhing forests, mammoth penises, meaty flora and voluptuous monsters also known as evil vegans. Despite the fantastical euphoria of his visions, there is something eerily allegorical about Hancock’s warped narratives. These are not simply satirical takes on
SIMON PERITON The Modern Institute, Glasgow, until Sat 24 Feb 000
It is easy to find superficial anti-art and anti-aesthetic urges in Simon Periton's spray painted collages and assemblages on show at The Modern Institute. The materials he takes his inspiration from appear to have been ripped from fly-posted and graffiti-covered walls, lifted from pavements and snatched from bins. And there is a certain retro indulgence in what used to be called camp (the knowing. twisted sister of kitsch) in the work too. Tinsel. fairy lights and shells act as ready-made add-ons. and are transformed into eyelashes. bubblegum bubbles and inelegant noses respectively. Natural and unnatural elements are enmeshed and hybridised; laces almost emerge from many delicate layers of stenciled pattern.
But Periton has a more familiar orderly side. evidenced in ‘Baronness‘ (pictured). for example. Here the indulgent formal experiments that take place in some of the larger works are stripped back. and a more restrained hand is at work. Butterfly patterned paper is cut into. teased. and painted over. creating a three dimensional piece that effortlessly unites the many influences that hover over the show — occultism. colonialism, pop art, etc. ‘Catwoman' and ‘Bonfire' have a similar feel. where only one or two techniques are used. and the compositions are kept free of distracting multidimensional eye clutter. But they are not half as fun as the gaudy nonsense of ‘Dogger', ‘Shell Queen‘ and their ilk. where the grotesque face of nature looks back and asks ‘Pretty pretty?', in the manner of drag diva Divine or the pattern-poked visage of Leigh Bowery. (Alexander Kennedy)
creationist myths, nor are they some rambling epiphanies of a surrealist fan. Instead, these works, gathered under the ark of Hancock’s grand narrative, gesture to a sinister underbelly of a distinctly liberal kind of fear. Characters like ‘Coon Boy’ pop up in Hancock’s stories, as do references to the ‘aborted but beautiful’, ‘oozing mound meats’ and a vegan called ‘Sesom’ (that’s Moses backwards). The unrestrained work draws a fine balance between repulsion and sensuousness, and mutates the provocative into the playful, all the while dragging the viewer through a story that appears to have no end.
Hancock articulates the poisonous conflicts of sex, culture and race, with an ornate ugliness and captivating indulgence worthy of Hieronymous Bosch. And, with equally artistic touches of William Blake and Yves Tanguy, the Oklahoma-born, Houston-based artist admits his early aspiration to become a comic book artist. Attracted by the format’s good/evil polarities, Hancock has since developed a style encompassing the biblical, ritualistic, sexual and violent. And, in doing so, he has arrived at a world never that far away from our own. (Isla Leaver-Yap)
Visual Art
INTERVIEW
THE BIG FOUR
Susanna Beaumont of Doggerfisher Gallery, chats to lsla Leaver-Yap about her artists at this year’s Venice Biennale. As one of the most varied line-ups that Scotland has presented at this year’s biennale, Doggerfisher's Lucy Skaer, Rosalind Nashashibi, Louise Hopkins and Charles Avery will head out to the Scottish Palazzo Zenobio to make new work for their presentation, along with fellow artists Henry Coombes and Tony Swain. This year's Scottish curator and selector Philip Long has remarked on the heterogeneity of the Venice Biennale itself, while Beaumont echoes this sentiment in the Scotland selection: ‘I really dislike the question. “what is Scottish art?" There’s nothing stylistically to link these artists and that’s part of the excitement this year.’
Beaumont outlines the artists: ‘From filmmaking with Rosalind. to the works on paper by Louise, to Lucy’s drawings and furniture, and then Charles who does works on paper but whose latest work was a series of sculptures — these are four artists that cannot be confined to one particular medium,‘ Beaumont explains. ‘All six artists together show a real diversity.’
Acting as a support to both curator and artists, Beaumont comments on the anticipation surrounding the greater presence that both Scotland and Britain will have at the forthcoming Biennale. noting that the selection displays 'a maturity that isn’t resorting to trying to define a “Scottish” art.’
While the number of biennials has exploded in the past decade, Beaumont believes that the oldest of them all still holds relevance as a place of artistic ambition. ‘Venice gives an affirmation of the artist,’ she states. But she is also quick to dispel any myths of Italian art glamour. ‘When you tour you've got to know the nearest 8&0 and all the good wall-builders,‘ she says cutting right to the practical issues.
‘l'm hOping it's not too hot this year. Not like the year when everyone’s ankles swelled and there was a shortage of plasters.’ I See News Extra, page 8, for ful/ details of the artists representing Scot/and at this year’s Venice Biennale.
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