Trenton Doyle Hancock (born 1974, USA) is a painter, printmaker and installation artist. His work draws on the history of painting and of pop culture to build extensive fantastical narratives, which encompass Bible stories, comic-book superheroes and medieval morality plays, combined to create a personal mythology. His works in all media work together to tell the story of the Mounds – a group of bizarre mythical creatures who are the tragic protagonists of the artist’s unfolding saga of good versus evil – and their enemies, the Vegans. His work focuses on the significance of colour, language and emotions, in a distinctive style which has precedents surrealism and outsider art and in the work of Hieronymus Bosch, Max Ernst, Henry Darger, Philip Guston and Robert Crumb.

These two wallpapers, Flower Bed (2003) and Flower Bed II: Prelude to Damnation (2008) (see E.16-2015) were both designed for exhibitions which were episodes in Hancock’s unfolding narrative. The first reflects a character’s obsession (which ultimately becomes a sexual obsession) with his flower garden, and his wife’s anger at this betrayal. The second depicts ‘The Great Mound Massacres’, the violent murder of hundreds of baby Mounds by their half brother and sister, ape man and woman. These two are banished to the underworld where they procreate to produce the Vegan race.