“It’s so funny going overboard”: Artist Teddy Hansen’s Medieval Iconography for The Modern Masses
In a world of fine art that feels more and more dead with every cheugy poster website and pixelated NFT artwork, something about Teddy Hansen’s work feels super fucking… alive. Two headed dogs, angels, boners, bleach, swords, visual storylines you feel like you’ve already seen in your dreams, and new ones that you can’t understand for shit. His color palette boasts mossy greens, blood reds, fleshy beiges, and pastels from your grandma’s closet. Hansen is a painter and tufter (although he couldn’t assure me that was a word), who notably uses a tufting gun like a paintbrush, where many other artists would turn to more ordinary, digitally-routed techniques. Ordinary is not his thing. Amidst sharing his inanimate works, the artist has been caught in 4k on social media sitting on a toilet drenched in water, imitating Freddo the Cadbury Frog, and dressing like a mummy. This is because he thinks “it’s so fun”. No matter how much his sincere and sharp fine art allows for some sort of rigid, tortured existence, Teddy doesn’t take himself too seriously. Throughout our interview, he holds a pen between his fingers like it’s a cigarette, and takes me through his artworks making sure I know that, sometimes, his inspiration might just be that he “thought being a pear farmer would be quite a nice life…… and then it spiraled”.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The first question I always ask is, what does a regular day look like for you? Wherever you are.
I'm in London — I get up quite early. I like the mornings, I usually drink a big old cafetière of coffee and then I cycle to my studio. I suppose I'm usually juggling a few things, so I get on with whatever I wanna get on with to start. And then I usually get bored of that after about an hour. So I go on to something different. Recently I've been in the studio for sort of seven or eight hours a day. It actually has no windows, so it drives you fucking insane.
Does being in the city of London itself inspire you at all?
London as a city doesn't inspire me too much because, most of my work — I mean, I'm sure we'll get onto this — but it's a lot about just being funny and making people smile. Not being too deep, you know. I mean, I suppose obviously being happy has deep elements to it, but I just want to be sort of silly and dumb and if people enjoy it, then that's epic. I love making it and I guess London does inspire me because of the people I hang out with and the people I meet — they’re funny.
So when it comes to inspiration, I don't really go out looking for it. It's mainly just the kind of people that I come across, and my friends and family, just doing dumb shit, which is fun.
Yeah, very fair. I think that frankness and honesty comes through in your work. It also speaks a lot to the fuel behind Pilot - we like to encourage people to make things because it feels good, not always feeling like you have to connect it to something deep in order for other people to relate to what you're doing. But it’s not easy to carry the confidence needed to do that — where did it come from for you?
I do find that some people don't get it. So in the first year I was showing work, I did want to come up with clever answers about my work, but it bummed me out. Eventually I realised when you’re genuine about it, not trying to overdo it, people still stick around. And there’s usually a theme or a narrative that people do love hearing, ‘cause it looks more random than it actually is. But when they try to work it out, and I explain the story, it becomes really fun for everyone.
For example, I had a show recently and I did a painting, which was meant to be a lion tamer using chairs to fight off lions and tigers. And there’s a dinner going on with cutlery and candles, but no chairs ‘cause the guy has used the chairs to… you know… fend off the big cats. And it’s just like, that’s the life he’s chosen. *Laughs*
*Laughs* So where do those stories like come from?
There's a lot of history involved, a lot of my themes and stories are inspired by different periods of time. I don’t like doing work that’s necessarily set in modern days. But I also don’t usually feature things where you would immediately know what period it’s from. But then sometimes it's obvious, like a medieval knight on horseback.
I’ve also got a huge list of sentences, quotes, and just random stories that I think are funny. Or I think of something visually that I think looks cool. Which I know sounds like a really dumb way of starting the process.
But overall, I come up with something that I want to include and then base everything around it. There’s one where I just thought, being a pear farmer would be quite a nice life, and then it spiraled. At first I’m imagining, sunrises, sunsets, beautiful pear orchards. Then it got weird because I did a massive farm building, and then I thought, if something goes pear shaped, it goes wrong — or it goes tits up. So then I did the pear farmer's wife who just chopped off her finger with her tits flying in the air.
Love that timeline. I feel like, with so many of these stories being carried out on rugs, you almost use a tufting gun like a paintbrush. How do you subvert that process the way that you do?
I think a lot of people test design it digitally and then project it. I would say they are more simple. I mean a lot of people out there are unbelievably good and way better than me at tufting. But a lot of people do play it quite safe with the designs whereas I’m usually sort of drawing it freehand and there are so many mistakes and I change it whilst I'm going. But I suppose that does make it feel a bit more handmade.
Definitely. On the topic of subversion, there’s a real sense of artistry + world building even in the promo you make.
I love all of that shit. I used to work full time as a photographer and videographer, and ran a clothing business, so whenever there’s promo I love being fully involved. I get quite awkward in front of the camera, but I also love that side of things. I’m not a model, but when I'm with the right people, it's so much fun.
I mean, I go way overboard, but I love it. It’s so funny going overboard. It attracts attention because it confuses people, but it also gets people pumped, I think.
Two other things I like to ask at the end of an interview, what's your favorite movie?
Oh shit, that's a good question. Waking Ned Devine, obviously you know Irish cinema now is massive. This is like quite an old Irish movie. I don't know what year it is actually, um, but holy shit. It's good.
Another one, I find it so funny, but also the cinematography is just so satisfying, Nacho Libre. It's just an unbelievable film.
And what song are you playing on repeat at the moment?
One that just always comes on is Autopsy by the Fairport Convention. Play it, wait till like a minute and a half in, maybe a minute in, and then suddenly the tune changes, and there’s a fucking dope little bit where — you should just definitely listen to it.
