John Hansen | Canadian Painter | Realism

John Hansen was born in Edmonton, Alberta in 1957. In the year 1980 he graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design. His last year was spent in Florence, Italy in the off-campus program. 
Among his many achievements, Hansen was awarded the Elizabeth Greenshields Memorial award in 1979 and the Adeline Rockett Award in 1988 – both awards making early note of this artist's talent.
It is only recently that Hansen has been able to focus on his work full time. In the past two years, he has produced a remarkable series of paintings: “Boy with CD” 2005, “Pansies” 2005, “Girl with a Balloon” 2005 and “Youth” 2006.For Hansen, sound craftsmanship applied in a proper theoretically grounded method is crucial as the effective means to express his reflections of life. Initially working from the imagination he creates the composition in his mind. Hansen then gathers reference materials by using a camera to record the image of the figure, and by documenting measurements along with small detail sketches. Hansen then sets to work in his preferred medium of oil.