Kyla Hansen (b. 1983, Las Vegas, NV) received her Master of Fine Art from Claremont Graduate University in 2012 and her Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2009. Her work has been exhibited throughout the Greater Los Angeles Area including Five Car Garage, The Museum of Neon Art, Torrance Art Museum, Cerritos College Art Gallery, Pasadena City College, Eastside International, Western Project, and the UCLA New Wight Gallery. Her work was recently exhibited Barrick Art Museum at UNLV and internationally at the Material Art Fair, Mexico City, MX and the exhibition Bloody Red Sun of Fantastic LA, a survey exhibition of emerging Los Angeles-based artists, at Piasa Auction House, Paris France. Her work has been recognized in several local and national publications including Modern Painters Magazine’s 24 Artists to Watch in 2013. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA
Hansen’s sculptures place found objects next to or incorporated into densely worked ‘craft’ materials such as hand-carved wood, ceramics, or cast and synthetic materials that could be found at any hardware store. Her amalgamations mimic natural forms, blurring lines between the found and fabricated. Many of her recent works delve into narrative archetypes of female, animal, plant, and mineral imagery.
Kyla Hansen’s densely fabricated assemblage sculptures and vibrant, quilted wall works use the desert landscape of the American West as a lens through which to examine narrative, gender and class. Her work employs language and aesthetics of rural and urban environments to explore disparities in perception and experience as the global population shifts from rural to urban. Hansen’s text-based quilted works reference patterned architectural anomalies of deteriorating desert interiors and exteriors; collaging together letter forms, clothing remnants, architectural fragments, spray painted lines, neon lights, and fabric, to evoke the patched-together-nature of Mojave Desert ghost houses.
Hansen’s sculptures place found objects next to or incorporated into densely worked ‘craft’ materials such as hand-carved wood, ceramics, or cast and synthetic materials that could be found at any hardware store. Her amalgamations mimic natural forms, blurring lines between the found and fabricated. Many of her recent works delve into narrative archetypes of female, animal, plant, and mineral imagery.
Kyla Hansen