Frances Hansen briefly taught us life drawing in last semester, from her classes(although I didn't know Frances Hansen's work before) I thought her artwork should be something like representing the beauty of human body or physical beauty. However, finally I found her art style is expressing life objects she collected in her everyday life and making unattractive things attractive. And by looking at her art painting, I realised this sort of art is very unfamiliar to me and I never touched materials art making before. So, Frances Hansen's art paintings widen and broaden my mind of how I thought about art. 
I'm really interested in Hansen's art making process. It's including collecting, constructing, thinking and changing. Hansen showed us various objects she collected previously and told us the process of how she reworked with her collections. Put aside the art style for a moment, the first thing I was focus on are the things she painted. For instance like packaging materials, cleaning bottles, glasses and even some paintings made by her children. Secondly, there are some design elements I find from the way of how Hansen constructing those objects: The negatives/positives shapes always appear in her work which are obvious, and she also using different colours divide up the whole painting and using light colors draw objects on the background. So, viewers can feel the strong sense of decorative design.
I think this is very close to the class I had with Steve Lovett at last semester-material drawing. At that time, I did a lot of material collections, find out what materials are useful for my drawing and investigate how could those second hand objects be changed and developed. And what Frances Hansen doing is just changing her life objects and doing something surprising with them. The most important thing we should learn is not the working process, the key is how we think about our life and how we respond to our life.
There are some materials drawing artists' works that are also very similar to Hansen's work. For example, ED Ruscha, a famous American whose mode of creation is using text as objects in his paintings.
"In some works, phrases float across sunsets or pretty blue skies; in others they’re barely visible and painted on stained canvases with egg yolk. In many ways he uses words as if they were objects and even in his eerie silhouette paintings they make their presence felt."http://www.elleuk.com/culture/art
Others like Hany Armanious who like to use sculptural form to represent everyday objects. I really like the Porcelain Palace because it is a very typical life object drawing.
I'm really interested in Hansen's art making process. It's including collecting, constructing, thinking and changing. Hansen showed us various objects she collected previously and told us the process of how she reworked with her collections. Put aside the art style for a moment, the first thing I was focus on are the things she painted. For instance like packaging materials, cleaning bottles, glasses and even some paintings made by her children. Secondly, there are some design elements I find from the way of how Hansen constructing those objects: The negatives/positives shapes always appear in her work which are obvious, and she also using different colours divide up the whole painting and using light colors draw objects on the background. So, viewers can feel the strong sense of decorative design.
I think this is very close to the class I had with Steve Lovett at last semester-material drawing. At that time, I did a lot of material collections, find out what materials are useful for my drawing and investigate how could those second hand objects be changed and developed. And what Frances Hansen doing is just changing her life objects and doing something surprising with them. The most important thing we should learn is not the working process, the key is how we think about our life and how we respond to our life.
There are some materials drawing artists' works that are also very similar to Hansen's work. For example, ED Ruscha, a famous American whose mode of creation is using text as objects in his paintings.
"In some works, phrases float across sunsets or pretty blue skies; in others they’re barely visible and painted on stained canvases with egg yolk. In many ways he uses words as if they were objects and even in his eerie silhouette paintings they make their presence felt."http://www.elleuk.com/culture/art
Others like Hany Armanious who like to use sculptural form to represent everyday objects. I really like the Porcelain Palace because it is a very typical life object drawing.
PORCELAIN PALACE2008Cast polyurethane on plywood8 x 16 x 2 in. (20.3 x 40.6 x 5.1 cm.)
"HANY ARMANIOUS produces installations and sculptural forms, as well as paintings and drawings that engagingly expand upon the role of the artist and the form of the artwork. He consistently surprises with his deft working and reworking of objects, materials, and references, remodeling the everyday in oddly lyrical ways." http://www.foxyproduction.com/artist/view/639
In short, Hansen's works are about developing and changing her life objects in a special way. A way that can change a normal thing to an artwork or something that could pay more people's attention. There are so many life objects that can hardly let people to notice. In fact, usually, the extraordinary thing is just come from some ordinary things. Artists' job is to discover unusual things from normal life. Anyway, Hansen's works inspire me a lot, show me how could I think up a good idea if I'm going to do a project and tell me art is come from life.
In short, Hansen's works are about developing and changing her life objects in a special way. A way that can change a normal thing to an artwork or something that could pay more people's attention. There are so many life objects that can hardly let people to notice. In fact, usually, the extraordinary thing is just come from some ordinary things. Artists' job is to discover unusual things from normal life. Anyway, Hansen's works inspire me a lot, show me how could I think up a good idea if I'm going to do a project and tell me art is come from life.
Thanks Chris, I appreciate your extra research into Ruscha and Armanious. But please remember, if you copy and paste text, to also refer to it, and say why you chose that text. How can we relate it back to Hansen? How does her work resemble the works of these guys? I think it's obvious with the Ruscha, but you don't mention it, that Frances started writing words ontop of landscapes. And with Armanious, this particular work is very much about collections, and relates to the way she would show walls full of objects, such as baskets. So, please put your quotes in context by explaining them.
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