ABOUT HANS VAN HANS

I am a Magandjin/Brisbane-based sculptor and installation artist. I hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from RMIT University and a Master of Visual Arts from Griffith University, Queensland College of Art and Design (QCAD). My practice is shaped by my experience as a transgender individual, using abstraction, participation, and material play to explore identity as something felt, negotiated, and encountered rather than simply represented visually.

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Currently focused on ideas around behavioural self-portraiture, my work often takes the form of responsive sculptures that invite touch and playful interactions. Rather than making static objects to be viewed from a distance, I create works that shift and respond to interaction. This participatory focus reflects my interest in how identity is understood and formed in relation to others and over time. Play is central to this process, where object behaviour reveals the unseen qualities of the individual.

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Working with materials such as latex, fabric, foam, inflatables, and toys, I create tactile bodily forms. I am interested in how people relate to bodies and objects they do not fully understand, and how humour and touch can open and engage more complex experiences and the knowing of identity.

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Across my practice, I use the behavioural and felt experience to disrupt the image. Meaning develops gradually through physical encounter, in which material relationships and sculptural behaviour become ways of understanding personal and relational qualities that I feel representation alone cannot convey.