M+B is pleased to present By and By and By, an exhibition of new works by Eric Dwight Hancock. This is the artist’s first solo show with the gallery. The exhibition opens on September 12 and will run through October 19, 2024, with an opening reception on Thursday, September 12, from 6 to 8 pm.
Eric Dwight Hancock has an intimate relationship with the landscapes he paints. Influenced by a diverse range of artistic traditions, from the English landscape paintings of Paul Nash to the American regionalist painters of Texas, like Jerry Bywaters, to Arthur Wesley Dow, the mentor of Georgia O’Keefe. Hancock’s work synthesizes the concepts and traditions of these artists into his own deeply personal visual language. His paintings oscillate between the familiar and the abstract, drawing the viewer into a space that hovers just outside of time and place.
In By and By and By, Hancock explores the notion of memory through the lens of landscape, allowing his past experiences and the emotional resonance of specific places to guide his brush. These works are not straightforward representations; rather, they are layered with the pathos of remembrance, where forms emerge and recede like distant memories. The paintings are characterized by a soft, iridescence, where colors shift and change, never fully settling into a single identity.
Hancock’s process is one of continual addition and removal, layering materials until the surface of the canvas becomes a repository of time, memory, and emotion. This approach lends a surrealist quality to the paintings, where the physics of light and the positioning of forms do not adhere to strict rules. Instead, they bend the boundaries between where reality and memory blur.
The landscapes in By and By and By are both specific and universal, reflecting Hancock’s upbringing in the heavily forested region of West Georgia, while also allowing for a broader interpretation. The artist’s use of color and light conjures a poetry of place, evoking a sense of belonging that is both personal and open to the viewer's own experiences.
Eric Dwight Hancock (b. 1982, Winter Haven, FL) received an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design and a BFA from the University of Georgia. Group exhibitions include Local Masterworks of American Art at Nino Mier Gallery in Los Angeles, CA; Solid Roots, Supple Trunks, Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, NY; Coning the Cube at Permanent Storage Projects in Los Angeles, CA; Subject/Observer at Keystone Gallery in Los Angeles, CA; and Magic Makers at Class Project in Los Angeles, CA. Hancock lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.