Channing Hansen's wonderful knitted artworks prove he's so much more than just Beck's brother
Can you knit a painting? Is maths art? Apparently you can, and it certainly is, if you’re artist Channing Hansen, who creates his woollen works by using computer algorithms to dictate their colours, materials, and compositions.
Photo by Joshua White
Hansen’s interest in combining technology, human biology and fine art is longstanding and has led to some rather unusual experiments: we’re told he recently used his own DNA to form the codes that go on to create his work.
He’s clearly an innovative chap in his own right, yet Google the poor lad and he’s billed simply as “Beck’s brother.” Which he is, and obviously that’s very cool, but we’re chuffed that he’s being recognised for his own work – Hansen was included in the Hammer Museum Made in LA exhibition recently, and now has a solo show opening at London’s Stephen Friedman Gallery.
The show presents new works, many of which take the form of large-scale yarn compositions wall mounted on wooden stretchers. According to the gallery, the pieces stem from when Hansen took up knitting “to occupy his energetic mind while away from the studio.” He drew connections between the knitting process and kinetic art, and has since become so enamoured with it that he apparently “sometimes shears the sheep himself, before skirting, washing, dying, blending and spinning the wool.”
