Harry Hancock's Blog

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2010-05-21T10:38:00.001-07:00

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You Will Never See These Drawings...

2009-10-16T18:52:00.000-07:00

...because the airline I flew with over the summer lost my bag.

In said bag, among many other things, was my cherished sketchbook with the following drawings in it.

Bye bye drawings.

Castles in Spain - Some Images and Comments

2009-08-26T12:20:00.001-07:00

Here you'll find some of my latest work, all from my recent exhibtion, "Castles in Spain", at Azucarera Gallery, 145th st, NYC.

The posts below this one contain all of the oil paintings, a selection of the drawings and pen-and-ink collages, as well as Judith and the large sketches board.

Please feel free to leave any comments, suggestions, questions etc.

Vulture's Nest

2009-08-26T12:16:00.000-07:00

Vulture's Nest
Oil on Canvas
2008-9
24" x 38"

This painting gets its name from the family of vultures that live here, just behind the viewer's head. They have a knack for finding the best places.
On the horizon is Morocco, around the corner the Strait of Gibraltar.

Trasierra

2009-08-26T12:13:00.000-07:00

Trasierra
Oil on Canvas
2008-9
24" x 38"

Blue Road

2009-08-26T12:01:00.000-07:00

Blue Road
Oil on Canvas
2008-9
24" x 38"

Morning Hill

2009-08-26T11:45:00.000-07:00

Morning Hill
Oil on Canvas
2008-9
24" x 38"

Zipper Road

2009-08-26T11:38:00.000-07:00

Zipper Road
Oil on Canvas
2008-9
24" x 38"

This was going to be a straightforward landscape, but the hatching technique that came from my drawing, which 'came loose' at lower right, suggested an unthreading, or dissolving, of the landscape.

Board of Sketches

2009-08-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

Drawing plays a vital role in my practice as an artist.
There are many different types of drawing.
Here are a few, pasted together into a large (7' x 4') collage.

Judith

2009-08-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

Judith
2008
Pen and Ink Collage
12" x 17"

- from Electric Pear 's Synesthesia 08-09

Aya Monet was the first in this game of artistic telephone, and her performance set the tone for this drawing/collage. It's about the violent beauty of female power.

Judith Wall - from Castles in Spain

2009-08-26T10:57:00.000-07:00

The sketches for the Judith piece form the backdrop in "Castles in Spain" and offer clues to its genesis.

Green Volcano

2009-08-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

Green Volcano
2008-9
Pen and Ink on Paper
14" x 9"

Another oversized head in a landscape, this time placed in the unstable environment of a volcano. The two entities have been scalped, or tonsured, by an unknown force, and by tectonic plates, respectively.
But what is green, and what is the volcano?

Moon Head

2009-08-26T10:51:00.000-07:00

Moon Head
2008-9
Pencil and Gouache on Paper
13" x 16"

This image is based on the Moon Tarot card.
"The card represents... life of the imagination apart from life of the spirit. [The light of the moon] illuminates our animal nature... the nameless and hideous tendency which is lower than the savage beast. It strives to attain manifestation, crawling from the abyss of water to the land, but as a rule it sinks back whence it came..."
(Waite, A.E., The Pictorial Key to the Tarot)

Nelson

2009-08-26T10:46:00.000-07:00

Nelson
Oil on Board
2008-9
12" x 16"

"Nelson" (the name insinuated itself...)
Strange, androgynous creature in a Sierra de Guadarrama landscape outside Madrid. Her breasts indicate that she is female, although they have withered, along with the rest of her feminine attributes. The only thing that remains is her long, luxurious hair, which gushes into the lower left corner like a flooding river. It flows from the mountain of her pulsing, glowing and dripping brain, which competes for supremacy with the mountains behind her.

The Troubadour

2009-08-24T14:15:00.001-07:00

The Troubadour
Pen and Ink Collage
2008-9
12" x 18"

I used this image for my flier.
It started as a drawing of a tree in Seville that I did on a landscape painting trip in 2008. I wanted an all-blue background, like the painting "Blue Road" from the same trip. This one came out nicely Leonardesque, with a touch of mystery.

Castles in Spain - a few words on the exhibition

2009-07-20T10:55:00.000-07:00

Azucarera is pleased to present Harry Hancock’s debut solo show, “Castles in Spain”. Vivid, colorful paintings and drawings inspired by the Spanish landscape give you a look through this young artist’s eyes at a world sometimes in harmony, at other times in alarming and surreal conflict with itself...

The title means ‘fanciful or impractical notions’ or ‘daydreams’ and describes the artworks’ detached, contemplative tone. The images’ other-worldliness derives from the emptiness of the scenes, but for one animated feature – perhaps a bouncing tree, a visionary explorer or an apoplectic bystander. The characters have been placed in incongruous situations, and their reaction to their surroundings forms the emotional hub of each piece.

In this they reflect the artist behind them: Harry Hancock was born in London in 1981, and moved to Florence in 1999 to train as a portrait painter. After this, he completed his BA at the Courtauld Institute in London, and moved to New York, where he has been painting and teaching Latin since 2006. Many of his artworks express this sense of being uprooted, and re-planted in different cultural contexts.

Using traditional materials and techniques, and using a figurative and sometimes decorative vocabulary, Harry Hancock has created an original artistic style that exploits the oil medium’s full potential in new, creative ways. Hancock is an oil painter in the traditional sense, but one whose experience of the world is echoed in his technique – for example, juxtapositions of contrasting motifs evoke the haphazard, high-speed and hybridized experience of culture in today’s world, and the way in which we perceive it. While committed to the visual language created by the Old Masters, he now draws influence from Outsider art, Himalayan art and Nature.

from "Castles in Spain" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

2009-07-13T12:07:00.000-07:00

The softer Andalusian skies
Dispelled the sadness and the gloom;
There Cadiz by the seaside lies,
And Seville's orange-orchards rise,
Making the land a paradise
Of beauty and of bloom.

2009-07-13T11:27:00.000-07:00

EXHIBITION AT AZUCARERA: "CASTLES IN SPAIN"

OPENING NIGHT: MONDAY AUGUST 3rd 6-10
CLOSES: SATURDAY AUGUST 15TH