RUN DEVIL RUN
Neil Hancock
LIST OF DRAWINGS
UNTITLED (ST. ROCH) CAMDEN
HEAD 1
UNTITLED (SKI MASK)
CLOCK
UNTITLED (BLOW JOB)
DEVIL 1
DEVIL 2
Drawings by Neil Hancock
Text by Ronika McClain Curated by Mo Costello
Saturday, November 20, 4-7 pm
J & J Center for Night Life (Remote Campus) / 8548 US-29 / Hull, GA 80304
SUMMER > FALL
It’s starting, and the leaves make me cry. The smell of rain hanging in the air makes my heart tense. The excruciating tick forward of time that is marked only by the smallest changes makes me melt. I found that the less stimuli I had the more sentimental I got about the little things (it’s the little things). But when I moved back to the “city” it was still the little things that stuck inside me. I miss the way it felt to be in the woods completely alone at 7 A.M. before the students got there to run. I would have the dog off leash and a podcast playing low in my headphones. I would notice how the path differed slightly from the day before. How steam rose off the man-made lake. It was my moment of peace before dealing with the bullshit that would come next. I spent the majority of last Fall and Winter completely alone, rarely seeing even my own housemates. I barely went into school as I did most of my work in my “studio”, which was really my ex’s bedroom. I was so, so isolated, which made the tangible connections I had with other people so intense, as if they were thrown sharply into high definition. Most of the importance of these connections was unspoken. The intimacy shared between me and those people is a bond that is energetic, uncanny. You can’t explain why it is, but it is.
WATCHING
So often Mo and Neil will text me (separately), photographs of things they love. Often they are photographs of words, ephemera, old photographs of us together. Something I love that Mo does, is say that something is breaking their heart - even if it is a tiny piece of fuzz on a sweater. It is sacred to love so much that even the tiniest of details can make you weep.
Language is powerful, obviously. But it’s transcendent when you let it become material. When that written language becomes form, you fall through it and into it. It becomes pliable; it becomes a plaything. The way Neil uses text and gesture (which, you could argue, is the language of drawing and painting) as material calls to me. It twists my gut. I understand it implicitly. He draws our attention to the gesture through gesture, rendering only the parts of faces, roads, bodies and floors truly visible that he wants us to see. So many of these gestures reference ephemera from throughout his life. The kicker is that he will go into his paintings and revise things, specifically the text, as his attitude changes towards them. Sometimes he will cross out words and rewrite them, as if he has to reiterate his own existence in his own work. And the subject matter of the pieces are these kinds of proofs of life, just the kind of proofs of life that are needed when you’re queer in a small town. The long-held lingering glance of a possible lover. Cackling with a friend. Wearing whatever you want out to the bar. Holding someone’s hand in a moment of tenderness. A brief note. Proof that you are real beyond the surface that is illegible to the straight world. And -- you may want to keep yourself that way -- for protection but also for the liberation of forming under the cover of deviant behavior. We don’t need to be read to be real.
LOOKING
I TOOK MY FRIEND TO THE SEX STORE 30 MINUTES OUTSIDE TOWN. IT IS CALLED FANTASY WORLD. YOU CAN’T MISS IT. THE SIGN IS A MARQUEE WITH AN ARROW LINED WITH LIGHT BULBS. THE SIGN IS JUST RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIELD OF WEEDS -- YOU CAN’T MISS IT. THE STORE UP SET BACK FROM THE ROAD ON A HILL YOU CAN’T MISS IT. A NONDESCRIPT BUILDING WITH NO WINDOWS AND AN EMPTY PARKING LOT. THIS FRIEND AND I FUCKED ONCE, AFTER HOURS OF SLOW AND STEADY KISSING. I LIVED IN NEW YORK THEN, AND WAS IN ONE OF MY TORTURE PERIODS -- ON THE BAD SIDE OF A MASC WHO WANTED ALL OF ME. WHEN I MET MY FRIEND THEIR DRAWL PUT ME AT EASE. THEY’RE FROM TENNESSEE, THEY SAID. THEY LOOKED INTO ME, THROUGH THE SHEEN OF SWEAT AND GRIME AND PRIDE I’D CAKED ONTO MYSELF AND THEY SAID THEY WANTED TO SLEEP IN MY BED THAT NIGHT. I’D NEVER HAD SOMEONE BE SO DELIBERATE WITH ME, SO DAMN SWEET. WE GOT STONED AND PRESSED OURSELVES TOGETHER SO HARD IT FELT LIKE WE WERE GOING TO BREAK INTO EACH OTHER. THEY FUCKED ME HARD AND SLOW, JUST THE WAY I LIKED IT.
ANYWAY -
NOW I LIVE IN NORTH CAROLINA, AN HOUR AWAY FROM THEIR TENNESSEE MOUNTAINS. THEY COME TO VISIT ME AND A FEW FRIENDS/DATES. IN THE SOUTH, EVERYONE’S ALWAYS GOING TO ANOTHER SMALL TOWN TO VISIT A DATE. I WANNA TAKE THEM TO THE SEX SHOP I PASS ON THE WAY HOME FROM THE GOAT FARM I GO TO EVERY WEDNESDAY MORNING. THERE ARE A MILLION OF THESE SCATTERED ALL OVER THE SOUTH RIGHT OFF COUNTRY ROADS. INTIMATE SHOPS FOR COUPLES. WE GET IN THE CAR AND THEY HAND ME A RING THEY STOLE FOR ME AT THE MALL. I FEEL LIKE I AM GOING TO FALL RIGHT OFF THE DAMN EARTH I WANT THEM SO MUCH. I’M IN THE MIDDLE OF MY DIVORCE AND NOBODY’S LOOKED AT ME WITH THAT KIND OF LOVE IN A WHILE. WE GET THERE AND EARNESTLY LOOK AT PORN MAGS. STRAIGHT FORWARD GAY PORN. WE LOVE IT. WE DON’T KNOW IF WE’LL FUCK AGAIN, BUT THIS FEELS PRETTY CLOSE. I DO WHATEVER I CAN TO BE NEAR THEM GODDAMN IT I LOVE THE WAY THEIR SHIRT HANGS OFF THEIR SHOULDERS. I DECIDE TO BUY A BOTTLE OF POPPERS AND THEY DECIDE TO BUY ANOTHER PORN MAGAZINE. WE’RE GOING TO HEAD TO A DIFFERENT STORE BUT FIRST I WANT TO TAKE THEIR PHOTO. YOU KNOW I LIKE YOU IF I WANT TO TAKE YOUR PICTURE BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO SEE THE WAY I SEE YOU. THEY LEAN UP AGAINST THE MARQUEE SIGN FOR FANTASYWORLD, YOU KNOW, THE ONE WITH THE BLINKING RED LIGHTS. THEY HOLD THEIR DOG, A POODLE NAMED POODLE, UNDER THEIR ARM. I STAND WITH THE FALL SUN BEHIND ME, IT PERFECTLY CASTING THEM AGLOW. THAT COLOR IS WHAT I FEEL WHEN I WANT TO FUCK SOMEONE. THEY SMILE, I SWOON, I TAKE THE PHOTO.
SMALL TOWN FANTASY ON THE ROAD TO NOWHERE
Neil works photographically, in the same way that Mo does, in the same way that I do. A photograph is just a moment of reframing your sight so that you show the world your fantasy. With Neil’s work, language melts into setting, which always is something familiar enough to enter but bizarre enough to be terrified. Sometimes it’s just the silhouette of someone, just gentle and rendered enough to understand their imprint in the bed. Other times, it’s the blurred face of a demon, guarding the entry to a road that leads nowhere. Regardless, I know Neil better through the moments he depicts than I could from just being his friend. These images show me his sight, his fantasy, the way he wants to be read. Which, I think, is illegibly, messily, with desire and curiosity and dark humor. I know Mo wants to be read in between gesture, which I think is common ground between all three of us. Their presence, even, is strong enough to be felt in this work because of the generosity of putting it together. I have never known someone to be so open. And me, I want to live in the spaces between the words, in between the moments of feeling that the work presents us. These are sentences, all you have to do is let it sink in and you’ll get it. Small town life is all about inferring what people mean when they speak to you. Keep an eye out, it’s never what it seems.
Then, when you’re ready,
It’s full throttle foot down hard on the gas toward the horizon where the people you love are waiting for you no pretense no judgement no nothing. It’s all a feeling. It’s all implicit. It’s all what you know. And it’s all good.
