Background

Hanson was born in Portland, Oregon, United States, on July 13, 1981. She was one of four children of Nancy, a teacher, and Mark Hanson, a computer programmer. She spent most of her childhood in Los Angeles, California.

Education

Erin Hanson developed an affinity for drawing and painting as a young girl due, in part, to the fact that television viewing was not allowed in the Hanson home. Instead, her parents encouraged their daughter to read books, play music and spend time outside. As a youth, Hanson mainly spent summers hiking, camping and rock climbing.

Hanson learned oils, acrylics, watercolour, pen and ink, pastels, and life drawing from accomplished art instructors. She started to receive her first painting commissions at the age of ten. By the age of twelve, she had been employed by a mural studio after school, where she was learning the techniques of acrylics on the grand scale of forty-foot canvases.

Two years later, she received a high school scholarship and became a student of Otis College of Art and Design, where she was absorbed by figure drawing. When Erin Hanson completed her high school studies at age sixteen, she entered the University of California, Berkeley, attaining a degree in Bioengineering.

Career

Hanson became a full-time painter in 2007. Over the past decade, she has developed a unique, minimalist technique of placing impasto paint strokes without layering, lending a sculptural effect to her art. She called her style "Open-Impressionism". She describes it as a combination of impressionism and expressionism with abstract art elements.

Rock climbing among the brilliantly coloured cliffs of Nevada and Utah, provided endless inspiration for her oeuvre. In these beautiful surroundings, Hanson decided to develop a habit of creating one painting every week for the rest of her life. She has stuck to that decision ever since.

Through the years, Hanson has continued to use the outdoors to inspire a huge collection of her artworks. Erin Hanson visits the Colorado plateau every year, backpacking and hiking through such areas as Canyon de Chelly, Zion National Park, Monument Valley, Paso Robles, Joshua Tree National Park, and the Anza-Borrego desert. Hanson transforms these landscapes into abstract mosaics of texture and colour. As a result, her oil paintings stand out in a crowd, bringing a fresh new look to Western landscapes.

Erin Hanson has exhibited her artworks in several art galleries across the United States and internationally. In late 2014, Hanson presented her nine-foot-long oil painting for the Torrance Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles; the painting captures the Madrona Marsh, a nearby nature preserve.

The Indian Wells Art Festival selected Hanson as the poster artist for the event held in 2015. The same year, Hanson’s paintings were exhibited in 15 wineries throughout Paso Robles as part of a special art and wine tour. Erin Hanson operates her own gallery, The Erin Hanson Gallery, in Frogtown, a neighbourhood in Los Angeles.

On January 2016, the St. George Art Museum in Utah organized a solo show of 42 paintings by Erin Hanson entitled Painted Parks, which is part of a yearlong series of juried art shows celebrating the National Park Service Centennial. For her first personal exhibition at an art museum, Erin Hanson featured scenes from National Parks and Monuments around the West, including Cedar Breaks, Glacier National Park, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon, Canyon de Chelly and Monument Valley.

Achievements

• 

  Erin Hanson is one of the most outstanding and prolific artists of today. She is credited as the pioneer and originator of this contemporary style as other artists have begun emulating her painting techniques. She managed to open her own The Erin Hanson Gallery.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Valley of Fire

  • Crystal Light

  • Cedar Breaks Color

  • Thistles on Orange

  • Field of Blooms

  • The Path

  • Oaks in Green

  • Water Lilies

  • Seventeen Mile Cypress

  • Emerald Shade

  • Color Reflection

  • Aspen Rows

  • Crystal Sherbet

  • Eucalyptus Clouds

  • Maple Light

  • Ocotillo Light

  • Hampshire Hills

  • Austin Greens

  • Palms at Dawn

  • Open Skies

  • Monterey Sands

  • Napa Oaks

  • Palm Awakening

  • Winter Vineyards

  • Rolling Light

  • Torrey Shores

  • Diego Sky

  • Seventeen Mile Drive

  • Joshua Dance

  • Clouds Above

Views

Erin Hanson has mentioned Vincent Van Gogh as her early influence. At age 7, after seeing Van Gogh’s Irises, she decided to become an impressionist painter. In interviews, Hanson has also cited as inspiration the Group of Seven, or the Algonquin School, a group of Canadian landscape artists from 1920 to 1933.

Quotations: "My goal as an artist is to bring the beauty of nature to the viewer. I want to capture the emotional gradient of the landscape - to dramatize it. Each painting is more of an emotion than a representation."

"Some might consider the desert to be drab and colourless with white granite rocks and scraggly trees, but I love to capture the moments when the early-morning light peeks through and lights everything up in sherbets, lavenders and ice cream colours. I want my collectors to experience the drama and excitement of the landscape like I do."

Personality

Hanson is a skilled rock climber, often hiking in Red Rock Canyon.

Interests

• writing poems

• Artists

  Vincent Van Gogh

Connections

Father:

Mark Hanson

Mother:

Nancy Hanson

References

• Erin Hanson: Open Impressionism, Volume II Explore the beautiful landscapes and sun-drenched colours of the West through the eyes of contemporary impressionist Erin Hanson, and experience the evolution of Open Impressionism.
  2016