Tanja Nis-Hansen’s practice combines painting with text and performance to explore how understandings of the body are shaped by capitalism. Her research centers on the conceptual potential of painting and its various roles as storyteller, messenger, and stage set for social critique. Previous exhibitions have focused on the ways in which health and wellness interact with labour and productivity and between depictions of reclining figures in sick beds, waiting rooms and bright green apples, the artist’s work examines the psychological aspects of facing dysfunctional institutions while shouldering responsibility for our own wellbeing.
Language plays an essential role in the artist’s practice. Using shaped canvases and text-based figuration, Nis-Hansen deconstructs phrases to allow new meanings to emerge. Influenced by ideas from the theatre, the artist often adopts a scenographic approach to composition and has used notions of performance anxiety as a vehicle to explore socio-economic pressure. A keen awareness of art history and a social background outside the art system allows Nis-Hansen to subvert traditional hierarchies of taste. Incorporating decorative, grotesque and Mannerist influences, her works emphasise how aesthetic and normative categories frequently intertwine.
Tanja Nis-Hansen (b. 1988, Faxe; DK) lives and works between Berlin and Copenhagen. The artist graduated with an MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts, Hamburg under the supervision of Professor Jutta Koether. Works by the artist are held in the permanent collections of The Danish Arts Foundation and the New Carlsberg Foundation.