Since 2018 I have been learning to use the camera as a speaking tool through staged self-portrait photography. While educating myself on the workings of the camera and photographic techniques, I used my vivid imagination to set up scenes for practice shots. I played with costumes, make-up and set design.  I pulled out random props from storage boxes, borrowed from friends and shopped at Goodwill or the Dollar Store. Through the camera I discovered a platform for expressing my opinions, values, sense of humor, view of the world and my commentary on how beautiful, heartbreaking or absurd life can be. As my skills have increased so has my ability to express the more complicated scenes that my brain dreams up. Composited surrealistic images entered my work in 2021. If I can imagine it, I can create it. Staging myself as the subject rather than hiring a model makes this process very personal. My body, my voice. Welcome to the view from within my mind.

Website of my work is available here: cindyhansen.photoshelter.com

Exhibited in the following galleries:

  • Thelma Sadoff Gallery - Fond du Lac, WI

  • A Smith Gallery - Johnson City, TX

  • Promega Art Showcase - Fitchburg, WI

  • Anderson Arts Center - Kenosha, WI

  • Trout Museum - Appleton, WI

  • Museum of Wisconsin Art

  • Praxis Gallery - Minneapolis, MN

  • Walker's Point Center for the Arts

  • Art Fluent

  • R.G. Endres Gallery - Prairie Village, KS

  • PhotoMidwest - Madison, WI

  • FotoNostrum Gallery - Barcelona

  • Moscow Photocenter - Moscow, Russia

  • Crimean Republican Universal Scientific Library - Moscow

  • Cedarburg Art Museum - Cedarburg, WI

  • Cedarburg Cultural Center - Cedarburg, WI

  • The Warehouse Gallery - Milwaukee, WI

  • NO Studios - Milwaukee, WI

  • Woman Made Gallery - Chicago, IL

  • Var Gallery - Milwaukee, WI

  • Marshall Building - Milwaukee, WI

  • Art*Bar - Milwaukee, WI

  • Plymouth Center For The Arts - Plymouth, WI

  • Midwest Center For Photography - Wichita, KS

  • Milwaukee Central Library - Milwaukee, WI

Awards:

  • Image of Distinction - "Moira" - PhotoMidwest Biennial Festival 2022

  • Honorable Mention - "Freethinker" & "Goddess Chained" - PhotoMidwest Biennial Festival 2022

  • Category Winner - Digital Manipulation, Non-Pro Series - The 18th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers 2022

  • Best in Show - "Freethinker" - Prairie Village Art Of Photography 2022

  • Director's Choice - "Moira" - WPCA 2022

  • Bronze - Imagine Me Series - Moscow International Foto Awards 2020

  • 3rd Place – “Patriarchy Blue Balls” – Var Gallery 2018

  • Honorable Mention - "Goddess Chained" - Female Sight - Praxis 2022

  • Honorable Mention - "Patriarchy Cook-off" - Art of Photography 2021

  • Honorable Mention - Imagine Me Series - 15th Pollux / FotoNostrum 2020

  • Honorable Mention - "Eyes of a Clown" - PhotoMidwest Festival 2020

  • Honorable Mention – “Frida Femme Fatale” – CoPA Arty Bollocks Exhibition 2019

Member:

  • Coalition of Photographic Arts - Milwaukee, WI

  • Wisconsin Visual Artists - Southeast Chapter

  • Museum of Wisconsin Artists

  • Milwaukee Art Museum

  • PhotoMidwest

  • Walker's Point Center for the Arts

Press:

  • September 2022, Capital Times Newspaper, Madison, WI, article on PhotoMidwest Biennial winners

  • January 2023 Wisconsin Visual Artists Magazine: Member Spotlight

  • February 10, 2023, Panelist at Alverno College for the Personal Best Exhibition by the Coalition of Photographic Arts

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How did she do that? Why did she do that? I explain the backstory and the process I use for selected photographs I created. I mainly focus on staged self-portrait composite photography but have been known to experiment in other processes.

People

Photographer entering the last third of my life in Wisconsin.