Print Release

Bluto 1 2018

To mark the 40th anniversary of my first solo show, in 1979 at the punky alternative space “Rock-it”  in Minneapolis, I’m releasing a set of 4 limited edition serigraphs, each on 17 x 14 acid free heavy weight bristol paper and in an edition of 12 signed and numbered by me and priced at $300 each or $1,000 for the set of 4.

Each image begins as an acrylic painting on paper which is then transferred to the screen with drips, splatters and brush marks intact, I realize people are responding to my engagement with paint, so it’s only natural that I would leave the drips splatters and brush marks visible in in these works. 

I’m keeping the edition size small and the price low and self publishing like my friends who I admire in the ‘zine world.

Payment via PayPal works great and I will send it off to you along with a doc sheet in a heavy weight mailing tube within a week. 

I would be glad to send larger images or details and I can set up an a meeting in NYC if you would like to see the prints in person.

Thanks for reading this, I’m excited to see how this experiment in self publishing works out!

feel free to write me at Supremehanson@gmail or contact me on insta at the same name

Erik Hanson

Tough Pink Bluto  2019

Gold Tooth Drip 2019

Graphite Hank 2019

2 New Fightclouds

Boys Keep Swinging......30 x 40 inches

I Can't Explain, Vince  40 x 60 inches

Autumn paintings...

No Trigger Warnings.....Flatlands Gallery in Houston

These paintings were chosen by Bill Arning for his curatorial project "No Trigger warnings"....

Hank 2

Fightclouds, summer 2019

I once had a boyfriend who looked a lot like Bluto...

Hank

One of the Bluto drawings that I used as a reference was like this guy only both his eyes were closed, I made a t shirt of that guy and when I wear it people ask if it's me....hank was my nickname in Minneapolis because I have such a common scandinavian name. In an effort to make a less cartoon like Bluto I opened one of the eyes....and here's Hnk..

Rocky Graziano

It seemed kind of fitting after painting Bluto for 2 years that I would paint this other famous strongman Rocky Graziano

Erik Hanson The Surrealist

When I was a little kid looking at the artists of the early 20th century I was very excited by the surrealists and the futurists who created manifestoes denouncing what came before them and clearing the way for a future where their movement would rule, One of the problems with this modernist march forward to make it new, make it new !.....discarding what came before them....was that artists couldn’t really go back and look at previous movements and take from that what work for them. I loved reading in Andy Warhol’s diaries when he came to the conclusion in the early 60s that “drips were out” Some of his early pop paintings of Coke bottles and cartoon characters are very drippy and you could see how they came out of abstract expressionism with figurations slowly emerging from the energetic mess. But at a certain point any sign of the hand had to go in order to make it noon so therefore drips were out

What a great time to be an artist!… I love that we live in a time when as an artist we can go back and look at movements from the past and take from them what resonates with us. No one seems to think of my work as suspect because I use so many elements of classic modernism combining surrealism, futurism and pop in a single work.

 I always admired the surrealists For their ability to depict through an uncanny juxtaposition the ethereal events which take such a great part in our lives.I  I started out working with ethereal subject matter such as music and then I started to think where does music live so I created environments such as these multi panel and wooden rooms which to me would house these ethereal elements such as music and smells things that can’t really be recorded but inform our daily life. 

I am using a kind of automatic writing by drawing spirals for the duration of a listen to a song thereby creating a visual manifestation of a sound. Then I started to make environments where the music could live but there were no depictions of the music these are the wood paneled rooms who’s planes defy logic.

I’ve also moved every day cultural artifacts such as cartoon characters to Yves Tanguys planet I have also adapted the cartoon construct of a fight cloud where various appendages emerge in an illogical fashion As a way of depicting the chaos of every day life. And the fight between being our authentic selves and pleasing others

Erik Hanson The Graffitti Artist

I got a notice from The Bronx museum today that they will be showing Henry Chalfant's work and I was reminded how much that work meant to me......when I was a little kid I was fascinated by his images of subway cars in NYC covered in graffitti and when I first came to NYC in the 1980's I was thrilled when one of these moving sculptures would pull into a subway station. So using my artist's logic, In 2005 I made a series of works on paper where my 5 Favorite Albums by the group "Sparks" were translated into their own universe and the song titles where rendered as graffitti floating in the sky, these were exhibited at MoMA/PS1 in 2005 in a show called "The Curious crystals...." a show curated by Bob Nickas and Steve La Freniere....

Group Show at Edward Cella in Los Angeles Opens Saturday 6-29