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Trenton Doyle Hancock

(Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1974 - )

Holed My Hand

2010

Acrylic and mixed media on paper

98 3/4 x 133 x 3 1/2 in. (251.0 x 337.8 x 8.9 cm)

Collection of the Akron Art Museum

Museum Acquisition Fund in memory of Dr. George and Margaret Seeley

2011.49

Courtesy the artist and James Cohan Gallery, New York

More Information

Equal parts drawing, painting and collage, Holed My Hand represents an abstracted approach by Hancock to storytelling. In the artist’s epic saga of the battle between two invented races of creatures, the hand has appeared as a pledge of faith, sincerity or justice, or a symbol of support and strength. It can also represent control and power. In this work, the crater-like holes that punctuate the giant hand are like stigmata that allow drops of blood, sweat, tears, rain or possibly oil to slip through its grasp. The black-and-white hand appears to be losing control as the drops flow through it. “Whose hand that is,” muses the artist, “I don’t know….I like that there’s no answer.”

Keywords
Woodcut
Hand
African American
Paper