@ellenrhanson · Most recent resident, May 3 – Jun 9, 2026

Ellen Hanson

Ellen paints on stretched textile, exploring the performance of femininity and the tension between elegance and vulnerability, often drawing on Olympic figure skaters and swimmers as reference. Her process is unusually analog: she staples fabric to the wall to sketch the underpainting, then restretches that same fabric over canvas so the image distorts, before adding 15+ layers of matte medium and oil paint.

From the residency

She's the first resident to travel internationally for the program, flying in from Mexico City — though she grew up 15 minutes from the residency host's own Chicago suburb. She arrived with a plan for a challenging 7-piece collage, finished it with a week to spare, and immediately started two more.

Read the full write-up

Ellen Hanson starts a piece by stapling fabric to the wall and drawing the underpainting. She takes the same fabric and stretches it over a canvas to distort and flex the image. She adds at least 15 layers of matte medium then oil paints her new reference. The remnants from this process exist on the sides of each canvas as color and lines. In a day and age when digital commands most artists' practices, Ellen's analog approach requires her to trust the process.

Ellen is the first to travel internationally to do Flower Residency. She flew in from Mexico City, but coincidentally, grew up about a 15 minute drive from where I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. She's eaten at Walker Bros. and Sarkis. Her area code is 847. She's sneaked bites of cheese from an assembly line while working in a factory. Ellen is based in Mexico City, but she's clearly from the midwest.

When Ellen arrived at Flower Residency, she had a plan to create a challenging 7-piece collage. She worked hard and finished it with a week left in the residency and immediately started two new works. Ellen makes art a lot like she plays tennis. She doesn't care about winning. She craves the feeling she gets when she makes a great shot. Ellen never doubted whether she would finish her work, but it didn't even matter. All that mattered was the feeling of really going for it with multiple ambitious endeavors. You don't always make a shot you hit with full force, but when you make it, it's like no other feeling.

— David Maxwell, Flower Residency Host