Frances Hansen

I'm not completely sure whether I liked Frances Hansen's work or not, but I did think her process was very methodical and interesting. As a young person at Art school I find myself consistently trying to leap ahead to the end product. Lecturers keep trying to beat this habit out of me, and it was cool to see how someone as experienced as Hansen works. Her process is quite epic I think, and I was a little surprised to find out that she was a mother as well as an artist. I'm thinking it must take a lot of effort to finish a piece whilst cramming all the "collecting, constructing, thinking and changing" in, as well as running a house and looking after kids.

It is not a surprise however, that her practice is heavily based around domesticity. This is definitely a key factor in Hansen's practice. You are a product of your environment and the domestic environment I think has a heavy influence on Hansen. Running a house must be a repetitive and monotonous job, and Hansen said her mind often wonders whilst doing household chores. Maybe this is more of a creative environment then it first appears?

One artist that Hansen said really influenced her was Dan Arps. This I found quite fitting, as I think her art looks a lot like his art, but on a 2D scale (for lack of a better term). Hansen thought Arps's work "is how a disgruntled office worker would make art". I thought this was really funny, and it made think that maybe Hansen's work is how a disgruntled housewife would make art? I really couldn't find many images of Arps's work, which is a shame as I think it would have been easy to make some comparisons of her work to his.

One Artist I did look into who can make strong comparisons with Hansen is Julian Schnabel. His work Bob's World is done on wood and canvas in '06 and is made out of oil, wax, bondo, ceramic plates and horns. This fits well with Hansen's work, as she also layers the hell out of her pieces, and uses all sorts of found materials. I think layering is definitely a key step in the making of Hansen's work. When you work with so many different materials it must become very tricky in what can go on top of what.

As for A Garden of Peculiarities, I thought that "Plant = Art" was a funny statement. Of coarse plants equal art, plants are a representation of nature and I think nature has always had heavy hand in art making. Mainly because nature is so aesthetically pleasing (jelly fish, snow flakes, crystal formations, bacterial growth), and isn't that the driving force behind art? To be aesthetically pleasing? Maybe not a driving force, but definitely a classic reason. If my above statement is correct, does that mean that places with more nature produce better art? Say, New Zealand vs. Los Angeles? I've been to L.A. and it's weird that when you hope off the plane the sky is not blue it is usually grey. What do you think?