Silhouette reflects Hansen’s inner turmoil over marking the boundary between public and private. For the traditional visual artist, the act of creation tends to be a private matter, with the final product the only "public" aspect of a much longer process. However, Hansen has long worked to share the act of creation with viewers, seeing it as an integral part of his overarching theme: to explore the interaction among visual fragments, the medium for display, and the visual work as a whole. In doing so, Hansen asks: can you define the boundary between public and private or does the boundary define itself.

In Silhouette, Hansen explores dance as a medium whose portraits cross the spectrum from private to public. Some keep private even their identities and their live performance, allowing only an imagination; others seemingly draw no line to keep the public behind. In exploring their common passion, dance, in imagery, Hansen examines the contrast between public vs. private.

There are 8 original pieces: 4 private portraits, 3 public portraits and 1 portrait performed live at the gallery opening as the ultimate public experience.

I’m interested in trying to understand whole individuals and whole ideas through the fragments of perceptual memory, the sound bites, and the semiotic tokens collected by society. It’s the product of these carefully selected elements that multiplies out to a greater whole, and it’s in that product that I look for a more holistic understanding.
My present approach evolved out of what seemed at the time to be an artistic cul-de-sac: damage to the nerves in my forearm from the single-minded pursuit of pointillism. Compelled to think of other ways to create art, I began pushing myself to experiment with new mediums: my torso, a tricycle, X-rays, dandelions, the Bible, key phrases out of audience stories, and so on. The selection of the medium became integral to the art, as much a part of the story and the holistic experience as the selected fragments themselves.
In bringing my work to the public I look to create a public dialog with art, frequently inviting the audience to contribute in some way, nearly always breaking apart the artistic process in order to make it connect to a more immediate reality through video that shows manipulation of the medium from fragments into a unified whole. It’s far from a didactic endeavor: I draw inspiration from my collaborators’ experiences as much as they discover art through my work.