The impactful black and white Step and Screw series began with a single idea — for Hancock’s alter ego, Torpedo Boy to come up against one of Philip Guston’s ineffectual Klansmen characters. Hancock sees Guston as a ‘grandfather character’ in his artistic practice, someone he has looked up to.

“I feel like my character Torpedo Boy has gone through a similar kind of metamorphoses over time [as Guston’s Klansmen character] and it would only make sense that my avatar and Philip Guston’s [avatar], I would describe it as one of his avatars, would meet up.” (Hancock, 2020)

This initial one-time experiment developed into a compelling visual essay exploring white supremacy, expanding to include organisations such as the police and organised religion. In this body of work Hancock confronts racial injustice, drawing from his own upbringing in North Texas and the political history of racism in the American South. This personal exploration opens up a deep discussion of culture, race and power.

Step and Screw: Money Wire with a Cryer and a Liar (2021) sees Torpedo Boy crying tears through a religious figure’s stigmata and into a collection bucket. This powerful, large-scale work is loaded with imagery and is rendered in black fur adding to its depth. The piece calls into question the power of the church, especially within the United States and in relation to black communities. Hancock explores how the language of the church seeps into the vernacular of the everyday and within the government. Religion is used as a bargaining chip in order to gain votes and power. Hancock’s hero is seen as having to bow down to the church, weeping in realization that he is still a cog in this machine.