Artists - Dunn and Brown Contemporary

PRESS RELEASE

Trenton Doyle Hancock
St. Sesom and the Cult of Color
September 2 through October 22, 2005
Artist Talk Saturday, October 8 at 2:00 p.m
Catalogue available

Dunn and Brown Contemporary is pleased to present an exhibition by internationally renowned artist Trenton Doyle Hancock. Hancock's latest chapter in his ongoing saga about devious Vegans and harmless Mounds unfolds in an ambitious mixed media site-specific installation exhibition titled, St. Sesom and the Cult of Color.

Through paintings, works on paper, wall text, three dimensional works, and sound, Hancock recreates the world of the Vegans and their leader, St. Sesom. In this most recent installment, St. Sesom discovers the source of color through a dream and shares his revelation with the colorless Vegans. Sesom's Chamber becomes the centerpiece of this exhibition with four monumental felt collages hanging from the gallery ceiling to create the walls of the bedroom. Created from enormous, intensely colorful hanging paintings, the interior of Sesom's Chamber includes Hancock's grandfather's bedroom furniture altered by the artist. Within the chamber, music emanates from the bedroom dressers, and silver buckets filled with pink liquid (Pepto-Bismol) occupy the interior of the skeletal bedframe.

In addition, Hancock has written the story of Sesom's dream directly onto the gallery walls, wrapping wall text around the entire exhibition space. Along with this narrative, intricate paintings and colorful works on paper depict both Sesom's revelation and the Vegans discovery of color. Many of these works portray the transformation of the Vegans black and white cave-like world changing into a colorful playground through their invention of "Miracle Machines." The complex paintings of Miracle Machines and Vegans end with a large-scale, site-specific painting of a hand holding colored eggs. This 20-foot wide by 12-foot high painting has a slightly ominous feel with a hint of foreshadowing. No doubt, the saga will continue beyond St. Sesom and the Cult of Color and this exhibition.

Trenton Doyle Hancock received a B.F.A. from Texas A&M University in Commerce, Texas and a M.F.A. in painting at Temple University's Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Hancock has received numerous awards including a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, Penny McCall Foundation Award, Joyce Foundation Award, Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Award, and Artadia Foundation Award. Hancock has been included in numerous prestigious group exhibitions which have included the Lyon Biennale (2003), the Istanbul Biennial (2003), and the Whitney Biennial (2000 and 2002). Hancock has been the subject of one-person exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Cleveland Museum of Art, and Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami. Hancock's artwork can found in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Baltimore Museum of Art; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; and Dallas Museum of Art.

Trenton Doyle Hancock will be present at the opening reception on Friday, September 2, 2005 from 6:00 pm until 8:00 pm. Dunn and Brown Contemporary is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 11:00 am until 5:00 pm and by appointment. Please contact Sarah Stork at the gallery or via e-mail at sstork@dunnandbrown.com for additional information or to request visuals of the exhibition.