Hanson's current work, Plates, tells the story of American life through the icons of the country's license plates.

Painstakingly crafted in the manner of a stained glass window, the license plate map of the United States compromises an array of vintage and current license plates soldered with lead and mounted on a handsome steel base.

This work was copyrighted in 1995 and is the first map from license plates ever made.
Because of the copyright, renditions of this by other artists are copies and subject to copyright infringements.

The art of Scott Hanson uses icons to reflect our concepts to us and induce us to reexamine our values and the way we perceive things. He challenges our ideas about influence and power, what is permanent and what is fleeting, our sense of time.
"There is a concept or conversation based around the work," the sculptor explains. "Each work may be beautiful on its own, but each also speaks to the different issues and conversations that go on in our society and our culture," Hanson says. "My work primarily comes from the point of view of the archaeologist, looking back at this period of time a hundred or thousand years form now, and seeing what stands out as unique or important to this culture, which might not be important six or sixty years from now, and which might not be at all important in a different value system."

Hanson has had a provocative life in the art world over the past 20 years, as artist, gallery owner, fine arts dealer and renewed artist. He is open, savvy, expressive. His exposure to the diversity and trends of art, to its popular and eclectic expression, and to the motivation of both the creation and the buying of art, is comparable to no one. He has always been a creator, a thinker on our symbology and a deliberate provider of perspective on our modern lives.

Hanson sculpts mostly in copper, stainless steel, aluminum, and a few other metals. "I have worked with some icons to mirror our concepts of timeliness. For example, "I've done a cast of a 1940's bomber jacket. It is one of the few items that has really transcended both fashion and trends, in that people are wearing these jackets today in the same way they have for the last five decades. It's a symbol of freedom, of the rebel in us, or a certain kind of social stigma, a certain attitude."

Another piece is a series of piles of currencies-one is of hundreds of thousands of dollars stacked up. "It's a commentary on art as money and money as art. Which is what happened in the '80s, when there was a prolific production of art to create dollars, not the creation of art that also produced money," Hanson observes. "The piece also speaks to the idea of currency as a lost commodity. I question if we'll use currency in the future."

"There is a tremendous amount of social and politically correct commentary occurring through art these days." Hanson's own artworks have primarily shown here in the United States.

"I don't know if my work is politically correct. The work is concept based, which stimulates deeper ideas and thoughts. This is my particular aesthetic interest. Right now," he smiled. "Reinventing myself periodically has charged my life. I'm excited by the chance to go in new directions. It has empowered my art. Being creative from the conception, production and sale of the work lets me experience the full gamut of the art world. It's very satisfying."

http://info@scotthansonartist.com   To contact the artist

http://www.hansongalleryfineart.com   Back to Hanson Gallery Website