Bio

The Essential:
Elizabeth Hansen is an American artist living in Switzerland. Her multi-disciplinary work, incorporating performance, installation, video, sculpture, and photography, is born of resistance. Whether she is considering gender roles, religion, or economic systems, Hansen brings an irreverent regard to the subject; using humor and play to provoke serious contemplation of the status quo and to promote the values of freedom and justice.
Elizabeth Hansen has an MFA from the School of Visual Arts (NYC) and a BA in Economics and Art History from the University of Michigan. Her work has been exhibited internationally in New York, Belgium, France, and Switzerland, and is in private collections in Belgium, France, Italy, and the United States.

And a bit more detail:
Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, Elizabeth Hansen spent her childhood in a conservative agricultural small town. After 20 years in New York and Paris, she now lives in a village in Switzerland, halfway between Geneva and Lausanne, halfway between the lake and mountains.

She received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Prior to this she earned a BA in Art History and Economics, with High Honors for her thesis on feminist symbolism in the works of Niki de Saint Phalle. A brief career in arts administration followed by an apprenticeship as a photographer’s assistant in Ann Arbor, MI, preceded her move to New York.

Like the neat, but ultimately overly-simplistic models that troubled her during her early studies in economics, the cultural norms that we use to define and structure our daily existence bother Elizabeth Hansen. It is here, in trying to to distinguish the ties that bind from those that also constrict and deform, that she finds the inspiration for her art.