Lexington, KY
Garrett O. Hansen is rightly concerned with the overwhelming presence of guns in the United States. To this end, he has collected spent slugs and cardboard target backings from shooting ranges, and has focused his camera on individual bullet holes. Each of these physical fragments of gun culture is transformed into something unrecognizable: images of torqued metal that resemble Chinese scholar rocks or abstract sculpture; brittle cutouts that recall the organic fragility of dry leaves; stark glowing pictures that conjure black holes or seething masses. What to do with the unexpected and undeniable beauty that results from all those mutations? Can it be harnessed to critical effect? Those are tricky, crucial questions which any artist—including Hansen—using abstraction to deal with weighty subject matter must ultimately confront.
—Lori Waxman 3/24/17 3:39 PM