Frances Hansen

Frances Hansen was born in New Zealand in 1962 and later spent 13 years as an Australian resident, completing a Bachelor of Visual Arts and a Graduate Diploma in Professional Art Studies from the City Art Institute in Sydney before gaining a Diploma of Education from the University of Sydney in 1990.

She returned to Auckland in the beginning of 1993. She then did Masters of Fine Arts (1st Class Honours) at Auckland University's Elam School of Fine Arts. She was awarded the Fowlds Memorial Prize as the ‘most distinguished student’ in the faculty in 1994.

Her work is full of elements of images that are certainly recognizable, and often ‘juxtaposes them in a manner that hints a particular reading of her work’.

In her 2006 series 'Split Level', Frances Hansen combined abstract and figurative elements to reference domestic interiors,'interspersing the flat, often neutral expanses' of interior space with detailed imagery which 'pinpointed' the domestic heritage of NZ culture.

One of these works that stood out to me as a ‘feminist’ piece, was the work we have in the library (not sure of the name) where she uses silhouttes of 'collected items' that all happen to be of domestic use, Items such as pamolive detergent bottles and Mr Muscle spray bottle silhouettes.
Another work I really liked was ‘How does your garden grow’. She made many works during maternity and when she was around her kids at home, which is interesting because they contain playful things that only ‘kids’ would do, e.g. copying exactly what her daughter had drawn onto her work.

Another thing I like about her work is how she always has her camera in her bag. By collecting photos of random things that capture her thoughts, e.g. patterns on letter boxes while walking then using them on her work.

Frances’ work contains a lot of collected items, from household items to plant tags.

Her works with the baskets I also really liked, as she used something ‘genuine’ ( I would call it) – she may have called it an ‘unsurprising’ object, to make something surprising and different. The collection all together was really effective as a body of work. Frances Hansen also stated she doesn’t like ‘titling’ work so with the baskets because they were made at that period of times (50’s-60’s), she labeled them from TV shows from that time period (cool idea).

Other things she had used that she had collected that stood out where Headboards, often hand crafted, personalized memento’s, doilies and even notes in a park. Making word banks of words that stand out to her. Packaging from the two dollar shop, packaging that comes with toys she had bought for her kids.. These works look at the use of packaging or the excess we have in packaging – that we really don’t need. Similar to Ruth Thomas Edward and the work she made, mountains out of tiny bits of cardboard with underlying issues of environmental concerns.

An artist she was heavily influenced by was Patrick Pound and his work ‘oil paint on plastic platters.’…She describes as ‘Low tech objects, which, through various manipulations makes them a lot more interesting…’

Now Frances Hansen lives in new Zealand and teaches here at MSVA.. She has exhibitions on regularly around New Zealand and also Australia and Canada.
She was a finalist in the Wallace Art Awards in 2001 & 2002 and many of her works are held in several public and private collections in New Zealand and Australia, including the James Wallace Collection, the New South Wales College of Fine Arts Drawing Collection and the University of Auckland collection.