EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND.- The Fruitmarket Gallery is proud to present the first European solo exhibition of the work of Trenton Doyle Hancock, a young American artist whose paintings, drawings, assemblages, installations, sculptures and objects pack a powerful visual and imaginative punch. Born in 1974 in Oklahoma City, Hancock grew up the son of a Baptist minister in the semi-rural town of Paris, Texas. At university, he studied illustration, then drawing and painting. Profoundly committed to drawing, He was initially uncertain whether to become a fine artist, cartoonist or illustrator. At that point, he recalls, ‘I formulated a mission statement. The idea was to have a painting project in which I could freely jump between modes of production and maintain a set of characters that inhabit the work’.

All Hancock’s mature work has been produced in the context of this project, an epic, ongoing saga which turns autobiography into mythology in a classic battle between good and evil as represented by gentle, peace-loving Mounds, and violent, repressive Vegans. In this exhibition we are introduced to St. Sesom, a free-thinking vegan minister, who is inspired to help other vegans become men again by being friendly to mounds. Sesom’s story is told through large-scale collaged paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, installation and incantations writ large on the Gallery walls. A submersive experience, the theatrical installation banishes pre-conceived ideas about art while thrusting the viewer literally and figuratively into Hancock’s mythic drama.