OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4TH, 7-11PM

MASS is pleased to present Understory, a group exhibition featuring four Texas-based artists who employ narrative in their creative practice. Lee Baxter Davis, Hollis Hammonds, Trenton Doyle Hancock, and Alyssa Taylor Wendt will exhibit a mix of drawings, collage, photography, video, sculpture, and installation. Each artist calls on different inspirations: childhood memories, religious and historical interpretations, film and poetic influences, fiction and fantasy, personal mythology, commonplace language, everyday thoughts, and typical conversations. Understory is on view at MASS from November 4 – December 10, 2016, with an opening reception Friday, November 4th, 7-11pm.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Lee Baxter Davis was born at Bryan, Texas on the 20th of October in 1939. He enlisted in the regular army out of high school. Afterwards he attended college and graduated with a master’s degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. His best friend in both undergraduate and graduate school was James Surls. Lee taught fine art graphics at East Texas State University, now Texas A&M Commerce, for over thirty years. He was full professor and was chairman of printmaking and later taught advanced drawing and figure drawing. Now retired, Davis is a deacon serving at St William the Confessor Catholic Church, Greenville, Texas. He has been married to his college sweetheart over 50 years ago. They have two adult children and ten grandchildren. He works in his studio at home. His prints and drawings have been exhibited throughout the United States and are included in the permanent collections here and there. Recently an article concerning his work and recalling his teaching style has appeared in Nat Brut Magazine.

Hollis Hammonds is a Kentucky born artist who has been living and working in Austin, Texas since 2007. Her work crosses media from drawing to sculptural installation and has been exhibited throughout the U.S. including solo exhibitions at Redux Contemporary Art Center in Charleston, SC; the Dishman Art Museum in Beaumont, TX; the Reed Gallery at the University of Cincinnati in OH; the Museum of Art at Southern Mississippi University in Hattiesburg, MS; the Hiestand Galleries at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio; Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX; and at Women and Their Work gallery in Austin, TX. She is the author of Drawing Structure: Conceptual and Observational Techniques, and has had her creative work published in New American Paintings, Manifest’s International Drawing Annual, and Uppercase Magazine. She was recently an artist in residence at McColl Center for Art + Innovation, and is the Chair of the Department of Visual Studies at St. Edward’s University in Austin, TX.

Trenton Doyle Hancock was born in 1974 in Oklahoma City, OK.  Raised in Paris, Texas, Hancock earned his BFA from Texas A&M University, Commerce and his MFA from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University, Philadelphia.  Hancock was featured in the 2000 and 2002 Whitney Biennial exhibitions, becoming one of the youngest artists in history to participate in this prestigious survey.  His work has been the subject of one-person exhibitions at The Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX; The Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; Institute for Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; The University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa; The Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah and Atlanta; The Weatherspoon Museum, Greensboro; Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln; Canzani Center Gallery, The Columbus School of Art and Design, OH; Olympic Sculpture Park at the Seattle Art Museum, WA; The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh; and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Hancock’s work is in the permanent collections of several prestigious museums, including the Brooklyn Museum, NY; Baltimore Museum of Art, MD; Columbus Museum of Art, OH; The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu; The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York; Dallas Museum of Art, TX; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill; Kemper Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX;  Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea, Trento, Italy; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Modern Art, New York; New Orleans Museum of Art, LA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; University of Texas at Austin Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, TX; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, VA; Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Wexner Center for the Arts at the Ohio State University, Columbus; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Wichita State University, Ulrich Museum of Art, KS.  The recipient of numerous awards, Trenton Doyle Hancock lives and works in Houston, TX.

Alyssa Taylor Wendt (b. 1969, New York City) works as a multimedia artist and filmmaker in Austin, Texas and Detroit, Michigan. Earning her MFA from Bard College, she constructs both films and installations that speak about monuments, spiritualism, ritual, performance and animism using video, sculpture, soundscapes, staged photography and interactive performances. Showing in both national and international exhibitions, she has also performed at The Museum of Art and Design in New York, envoy gallery, The Fusebox Festival and Deitch Projects and completed residencies in Iceland and Norway. She just completed her first feature film, HAINT which she wrote, directed, produced and production designed herself. The piece is currently being developed into a multichannel video work and she has numerous upcoming shows, with Dimension Gallery, Third Man Records, MASS Gallery and the new ICOSA collective in Austin. 

[MASS is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Economic Development Department/Cultural Arts Division believing an investment in the Arts is an investment in Austin’s future.]