Details:
① Artwork:
Deoxyribonucleic Acid Trip 4
This painting depicts a staircase that symbolically doubles as a zoomed-in view of veins, tracts or even strings of DNA. This work's color palette of red, orange and brown hues evokes a core that is burning or a system that is under thermal pressure. For this composition, the artist has integrated the text “Creeping Ulcer” into the composition.
This work is part of the artist's ongoing series Deoxyribonucleic Acid Trips which explores visual motifs of spiral staircases seen either from above or below. In this series, the artist examines how to represent the body or experienced bodily sensations through architecture—structures that almost dissolve into ornamental patterns in each of the compositions.
Nis-Hansen's paintings explore the body's presence amid contemporary capitalism, frequently depicting subjects as anxious, waiting, resting, ill or non-functioning. The artist's semi-autobiographical works often feature waiting rooms, spiral staircases, reclining figures and text statements. Nis-Hansen's work examines exhaustion, illness, bodily maintenance, female labor, heritage and the environment—and demonstrates a curiosity about the history of painting, as well as the social construction of hierarchies of taste.
Specs:
③ Artist:
Tanja Nis-Hansen’s semi-autobiographical work explores the body's presence amid contemporary capitalism. Encompassing painting, performance and text, the artist’s compositions frequently depict anxious, waiting, resting, ill or non-functioning figures. Nis-Hansen’s work invites viewers to think about exhaustion, illness, bodily maintenance, female labor, heritage and the environment—while also examining the history of painting and the social construction of hierarchies of taste.
BIO:
Tanja Nis-Hansen was born in Faxe, Denmark in 1988. The artist received both a BFA (2016) and an MFA (2018) from the Academy of Fine Arts, Hamburg in Germany under the supervision of professor Jutta Koether. Nis-Hansen also studied in Copenhagen, Denmark and Vienna, Austria.
Solo exhibitions of Nis-Hansen’s work have taken place at: Sans titre (2016) in Paris, France (2019, 2022); Sydhavn Station in Copenhagen, Denmark (2019); Come Over chez Malik’s in Hamburg, Germany (2017); and the Golden Pudel Club in Hamburg, Germany (2015).
Group exhibitions that have included Nis-Hansen’s work have taken place at: JUNE in Berlin, Germany (2022); L’INCONNUE in New York City (2021); Melike Bilir in Hamburg, Germany (2021); SORT in Vienna, Austria (2019); Crum Heaven in Stockholm, Sweden (2019); Rumpelstiltskin in New York City (2018); Kunsthaus Hamburg in Germany (2018); Galleria Federico Vavassori in Milan, Italy (2018); Münchner Kammerspiele in Munich, Germany (2018); The Institut Kunst in Basel, Switzerland (2018); and Halle fur Kunst in Lüneburg, Germany (2017).
In 2020, Nis-Hansen was awarded a travel grant by Neue Kunst Hamburg in Germany for CONNY, the artist’s performative collaboration with Niclas Riepshoff. Nis-Hansen was awarded a work grant by the Danish Art Council in 2019.
Nis-Hansen lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
