'Essence of Nature' exhibit highlights professor's art through August 5

"The Essence of Nature: The Art of Harry Hansen" will be on view April 22-August 5 at McKissick Museum's second floor north gallery. The exhibit is free and open to the public.

A reception and talk by USC art professor John Bryan celebrating Hansen's work will take place at McKissick Museum from 4:30 to 7 p.m. May 4. This event is free and open to the public.

Mostly recognized for his watercolors of the Palmetto state's diverse landscapes, Hansen gently captures the essence of the natural environment on paper. For more than 25 years, he has created watercolors recording regional settings not only throughout South Carolina and the mountains of North Carolina, but in Maine and the Maritimes of Canada.

Hansen's body of work extends far beyond his recognition as a watercolorist. During the 1960s he explored with abstraction in oils, and lithographic works. His most experimental approach to painting, beginning in the mid-1960s, was in the form of wax. Encaustic, a mixture of pigment and hot beeswax painted on a panel, is a process dating back more than two thousand years.

In addition to his long career as an artist and an educator, Hansen has been an active member of arts groups and an organizer of watercolor events throughout the southeast. He is the recipient of nearly 50 art awards, and has been represented in nearly 150 group and one-man exhibitions. His academic career at USC spanned from 1970 through 2004. During that time he was a professor of both Freshman Fundamentals and Painting, and he served in a number of administrative positions. But Hansen has always identified himself first and foremost as an artist.

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