Artist Registry

Eric L. Hansen

Eric L. Hansen. “Robber Cat” Eric L. Hansen. “Empty Drawers” Eric L. Hansen. “Fusion 1”

Contact information

eric@ericlhansen.com
www.ericlhansen.com

Take 121 Arts
Chad Hollingsworth
121 3rd Avenue South
Nashville TN 37201
(615) 244-4642

Artist statement

To represent the range of what I do, I have submitted images from three different bodies of work: Dollhouse, Fusion, and Farmer in the Dell. So there are three different artist's statements, as follows:

Dollhouse lies at the intersection of illusion with reality, of memory with imagination. Photographs of the people who once lived there elaborate some of the interior spaces. Dark patinas of time stain the walls, imprinting each room with a sense of presence. The images are intended to seem quite real, but sometimes ambiguous, and finally ... perhaps not real at all?

Dollhouse was photographed from a circa 1900 dollhouse. The average room size was approximately six by ten inches, with six inch high ceilings. I used a variety of lenses, perspectives, and lighting techniques to create the sense that these rooms are “real.”

There are 21 images printed approximately 30"x40" in editions of eleven.

Fusion is a visual conversation between two strong and distinct aesthetic identities, Asian and Western. I weave them together as separate strands of culture to form a new visual consciousness, one that is shaped and driven by the larger geo-political process called globalization. . It can best be seen and understood as a cultural phenomenon that is shaping virtually all conversations in arts and letters today.

There is projected to be 40 images printed 32"x40"

Farmer In The Dell begins with my own yearning for days I barely remember from my childhood, and rather more from stories I heard from my grandfather that he heard from his grandfather; stories about experiences I want to have now, today, my longing for days when the air was clean, the skies and oceans blue, the fields green, and crystal streams laughed their way to the great river through giant forests where real birds still sang ... a rural society good, innocent and true without the complexities of our post-modern day. I honor that longing in these images of avatars who go to that time for us, to have the experiences that we can not.

Are these avatars real? The first answer is of course not. They make us laugh. But the second answer is a question: Do we shelter these avatars inside ourselves and hold on to them the way we hold on to hope? Do they represent part of our connection to the divine?

There are projected to be 25 images 32"x40" in editions of eleven.

Resume / bio

Eric L. Hansen's color images are deeply personal storyboards of his own connections to post-modern American culture. Reviewers have found his work "…distinctive; a new voice, highly conceptual" (Rock Hushka, Tacoma Art Museum), "… compelling, a kind of first-person social anthropology" (Alan Rapp, Chronicle Books), and "… at once fascinating and horrifying… I experience a jumble of emotions" (Jeanne Friscia, San Francisco Cameraworks).

Museum directors who have curated his work include: Director of the Museum of Photographic Art Carol McCusker, Director Emeritus of the Museum of Photographic Art Arthur Ollman, Director of Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art Robert Fitzpatrick, Director of Contemporary Art at the Santa Fe Museum of Fine Arts Laura Addison, Director of the Smithsonian Museum of American Art Joann Moser, Director of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery Marc Pachter, and Associate Director of Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art Alma Ruiz.

In the last ten years, his work has appeared in more than thirty group shows and solo exhibitions, where he has won numerous awards. Last year, his work was featured in the spring issue of Eyemazing, the international fine art photography journal.

Eric began making photographs at the age of 12, and while he later studied drawing and painting, photography remains his enduring passion. In junior high school, he worked part time assisting New York's Bachrach portraitist J. Stevens Dorsey. In high school he won numerous photography awards. He earned a BFA degree at Newark College of the Arts. All of his work is post-modern and at some level, political. Most is compositionally intentional, after Cezanne, and sometimes darkly expressionist, as Schiele and Kokoschka; and sometimes minimalist in the Japanese tradition of Ukiyo-E. Some of his images are painful; some are joyous; some are funny. All are provocative in deep color and pronounced chiaroscuro.

Publications

Exhibitions

Awards and achievements

Selected Group Shows

(Information last updated: 26 September 2008)

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