Eli Hansen is an artist concerned with blending his expertise in the very traditional processes of glass, steel, and wood with an art practice that focuses on sculpture, installation, and the ready-made. By bringing together objects he creates himself with so-called found objects, he blurs the lines between the two and questions the value we place on them. Delicate blown-glass sculptures are presented alongside deteriorating found objects on handmade shelves or placed in a frame of roughly forged steel to make off-kilter chandeliers. By juxtaposing the rough and the exquisite, the elaborate structures begin to resemble the fantastical accouterment of dysfunctional meth labs.
Hansen has had institutional exhibitions at CoCA, Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA; Parc Saint Leger, Pougues Les Eaux, France; and the Seattle Art Museum ,Seattle. He has had solo and two-person shows at Jeffrey Stark, New York; Take Ninagawa, Tokyo, Japan; Maccarone, New York; Jonathan Viner, London; Anat Egbi, Los Angeles; Balice Hertling, Paris; The Company, Los Angeles; The Fireplace Project, East Hampton, NY; Lawrimore Project, Seattle; The Helm Gallery, Tacoma, WA; Howard House Contemporary Art (with Oscar Tuazon), Seattle; Bodgers and Kludgers Cooperative Art Parlour, Vancouver, BC ;Tacoma Glassblowing Studio, Tacoma, WA; and Hand to Mouth Gallery, Bellingham, WA.
