Elsa Hansen creates deceptively simple cross-stitch embroidery pieces on fabric.  Her embroidered figures often depict provocative comparisons of public and religious figures, offering an unexpected take on popular events, politics and society. Cross-stitch embroidery flourished during the Tang dynasty (618-906 AD) in China and spread via trade routes through the Middle East, Africa and Europe.  In its most elaborate form, including the famed Bayeux Tapestry, embroidery became a device for storytelling.  Imbuing the technique with a minimal, stripped-down aesthetic and portraying contemporary figures, she intertwines tradition and pop culture. 

Hansen took up cross-stitching while collaborating on film projects.  It was a way to fill time during the editing process.  She experimented with various designs until she came across Minipops, small pixelated drawings of famous people created by the British artist Craig Robinson.  At first inspired by the figures found on his hit cult website, she realized that pixels translated directly to cross-stitching and began to create her own cast of characters.

Elsa Hansen currently lives and works in Louisville, Kentucky, where she was born in 1986.  She studied outdoor recreation at Western Kentucky State University in Bowling Green and in 2008 took a summer internship as an Urban Park Ranger in Brooklyn, New York.  She became an assistant to well-known sculptor Tom Sachs and collaborated with experimental filmmaker Van Neistat.  Her work was recently shown at Dickinson Gallery in New York City.