3rd Prize Winner
Yasha Young Projects Sculpture Award

Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize 2024

Spencer Hansen

Title:

“Lela”

Medium & Dimensions:

Ceramic, Himalayan goat fur, Brass, 80 x 34 x 24 in

About the Artist

Spencer Hansen graduated from San Francisco Art Institute in 2006. He is an interdisciplinary artist whose imagination and intellect intertwine to create playful art thoughtfully sourced, designed and constructed. Spencer works primarily with natural materials, hand making detailed art that is the antithesis of our disposable culture. Endlessly experimenting with processes and fueled by curiosity, his work flirts with the relationship between light and time, texture, weight and form. The resulting story often reveals a transformation of a common object into abstraction, undeniably familiar, simultaneously foreign.

In addition to Spencer Hansen Art, which includes painting, sculpture, masks and photography, he is also the co-founder and creative director of BLAMO toys and BLAMO clothing, both conceived in rural Idaho and developed into established independent companies. When he is not experimenting in his Bali workshop, (designed from recycled Javanese boat wood and home for himself and co-workers), he travels between his home state of Idaho, Orcas Island, Japan, California and Europe.

“Lela”: is a Bat Spirit created and photographed by Spencer. Encountering LELA is like discovering a new species with an heir of familiarity, with the power to elicit nostalgia and a sense of belonging, yet an undeniable essence of something unknown. Lela was created for Strangers; a show inviting viewers to contemplate the perception of foreign encounters and wonder at their significance in this world.