Meet the Artist Part 3: Shane Hansen

On other artistic outlets…

Music is a big thing for me. Often when I'm creating a piece, music's happening in my head and I've written quite a few different little pieces of music that relate to the paintings because it kind of inspires that. Like the flow of my work is all about interconnecting. I try and avoid a lot of straight lines intersecting each other. It's kind of about trying to hit this rhythm – a musical rhythm that flows through the pieces; that connects them together. Because you can extrapolate every element and it's what stands on its own, but [I try] to bring it all together into one fluid piece.

On working through a creative block…

Sometimes instead of focusing on the work, I’ll garden, cut firewood, or go off on a big paddle. Sometimes working on something for so long, you go, "Oh, I hate that," and leave it. And then when you come back to it five years later it's, "Oh wow. That's actually..." And thinking about it with a new perspective can inspire me to get moving on it again.

On advice for someone starting out…

Find something that you're passionate about and pursue that – be fulfilled by what you're doing. If you're passionate, you find a way to make it work.

On cultivating a sense of community…

Community for me is about looking after the people that are around us; having good friendships and just being there for one another. Being in a smaller community, the school is quite an important part of that. We'll find when you take the kids to school in the morning, you end up having a 20-minute chat with some of the other parents. Or you'll catch up for a surf or for a coffee. 

On being grateful…

I'm grateful for having the partner that I do. She came into my life at a good time for me and she put up with a lot of stuff – she's kind of been my saviour, really.  

On embracing our heritage…
My heritage is Chinese, Maori, Scottish, Danish and English. My mom was Maori/Chinese and Scottish. My dad: Danish and English. My wife, she's half Indian, so our boys have got quite a mix there. And that's identifiable for a lot of us living in New Zealand.

On having a distinctive artistic style…
My work's all about sort of using modern motifs – flora and fauna – acknowledging and celebrating that.  There’s a graphic nature and the use of the sharp crisp lines which are reminiscent of my Maori heritage but also my Chinese heritage. There's a kind of calligraphy – my grandfather used to do a lot of this.  

On why to support Bowel Cancer New Zealand…

My grandfather died of bowel cancer when I was young, but I hadn’t really started to think about mortality until my sister got bowel cancer. It was a big eye opener – she's only one year older than me and it was like going, "Man. This is real. And it could happen at any time."

I mean, all of this has kind of made it more important that people, no matter what age you are, if you're having health issues and something doesn't feel quite right, go get checked. If the doctor says it's OK and you still feel nervous about it, go find someone else that's going to check. You hear so many times that people have left it too long.

On the inspiration behind the bum hugger print…

This is all about celebrating life and just saying life is beautiful and you've just got to keep remembering that. Tuis don't appear to me to be sitting around moping about things. They're always out there pushing the limits and singing proudly, and they're just so dynamic that for me, that's what I wanted, that is the tui symbolising for me. A whole flock of them! The tui features in a lot of my work because he's my kaitiaki. He symbolises pride and pushing yourself – having self-confidence. The motif in the background represents a sense of rhythm, that sort of the organic nature of life and the growing and the intertwining, because we're all interconnected.