The Brooklyn Rail

Part psychoanalyst, part world-builder, Trenton Doyle Hancock’s practice submerges us into an ever-expanding mythos that exists at the nexus of personal narrative and social commentary, interrogating the machinations of power, control, and violence that have shaped the politics of race in America. For this exhibition, Draw Them In, Paint Them Out at the Jewish Museum, his artworks are paired with those of Philip Guston, a significant influence on Hancock’s practice. Guston demonstrated a radical empathy, using art to confront America’s racial and historical contradictions. The exhibition positions Hancock as the heir apparent to a style of cartoonish figuration and political satire, first realized by Guston and now reframed in Hancock’s work through a lens of Black resistance within his imagined world, the Moundverse.

Hosted by the Jewish Museum, a venue with its own history of confronting racism and prejudice through art, the current exhibition was conceived in 2016 amid heightened racial tensions in the US when MAGA hats, Confederate flags, and swastikas had united under the banner of white nationalism following the first election of Donald Trump. In a striking turn, the exhibition now opens at the start of Trump’s second term, a moment when many of the anxieties of 2016 have resurfaced—perhaps even intensified. Through Hancock and Guston’s artworks, the exhibition invites reflection on the American contract, an unspoken agreement aligning individuals with power structures and cultural narratives, often to the detriment of marginalized communities.

Hancock uses the Moundverse mythology to explore this "American contract." Through its characters, he illuminates uncomfortable truths about American society and confronts his own negotiations with this contract. Many characters in Hancock’s work manifest aspects of the artist’s psyche. His self-described avatar, Torpedoboy, is front and center in the exhibition. This character examines Black excellence and the pitfalls of identifying too closely with the dominant culture, as well as the way exceptionalism can blind minorities to the disenfranchisement of their communities. In contextualizing the exhibition within the Moundverse timeline, Hancock describes it as a fever dream where Torpedoboy grapples with aspects of the artist’s self, learning empathy and understanding the struggles of Black bodies in America. Created during Hancock’s youth, Torpedoboy represents an idealized self—an immortal superhero with super strength. Despite his power, however, Torpedoboy is not without flaws, in particular a lack of empathy and vulnerability, and Hancock thus positions him as an antihero.

Hancock’s aesthetic is a dynamic blend of comic book iconography, profoundly symbolic imagery, and pop art vibrancy. With its thick, expressive lines and cartoonish rendering, Guston’s practice resonates in Hancock’s compositions. After a stint in Abstract Expressionism, Guston returned to figuration and became known for painting caricature depictions of hooded Ku Klux Klan figures. In this exhibition, Hancock reappropriates these characters, placing them in dialogue with Torpedoboy. His “Step and Screw” series, which plays a prominent role in the exhibition, depicts a moment of transaction between Torpedoboy and a Guston-esque hooded figure, illustrating the tradeoffs built into the American contract and the moments it begins to unravel.

In the artwork Schlep and Screw, Knowledge Rental Pawn Exchange Service (2017), which may be the exhibition’s central image, a Klan figure sells an apple of knowledge to Torpedoboy. The apple, an obvious nod to the biblical creation story, represents original sin, self-awareness, and guilt. It also reflects Hancock’s internal wrestling with religion—specifically his Christian upbringing—and his disillusionment with how religion has been weaponized to control narratives of good and evil. The contractual exchange unravels when Torpedoboy realizes he already owns the apple—that it was stolen and is now being sold back to him. Here, the contract breaks down because the signee has become self-aware. In another image, Step and Screw: The Star of Code Switching (2020), another Klan figure that recalls Guston’s work exchanges a star reminiscent of the Super Star in the Super Mario video game series with Torpedoboy, further interrogating identity and the process of adaptation in racialized spaces.

This element of self-reflection further ties Hancock’s work to that of Guston. With his paintings of Klan figures, Guston also examined his participation in whiteness and the American contract. Born at a time when Jewishness was not synonymous with whiteness, Guston changed his name from Goldstein to Guston to distance himself from perceived discrimination. Though he could pass as white, his empathy for marginalized communities persisted, and his work with Klan imagery became a way to grapple with this internal contradiction. This cathartic exercise is exemplified in his painting The Studio (1969), which shows a hooded Klan figure painting another hooded Klan figure—a radical act of self-inclusion in his critique of America. This same honesty is evident in Hancock’s work.

By placing himself within his critique, Hancock continues a lineage of radical self-examination employed by Guston. Through the juxtaposition of these two artists, Draw Them In, Paint Them Out both exposes racial power structures and challenges viewers to examine their own complicity in the American contract.