Ellen Hanson

General Expenses presents Pozo de la muerte [well of death], the first solo exhibition by Ellen Hanson in the gallery.

In this body of work, Hanson returns to a central thread in her practice: the uneasy intersection of failure and femininity. The catalyst for the series was an image she couldn’t shake—a motorcycle continuing to circle the arena even after its rider had crashed to the ground, seriously injured. From there, the Well of death becomes a space where private and public failures bleed together, where the mundane tips into the catastrophic. One painting, for instance, depicts the severed hair of Britney Spears, recalling the moment she shaved her head—and the bizarre eBay listing in which salon employees tried to sell her discarded locks. The descent into an existential abyss lingers both metaphorically and in plain sight.

— Rebeca Leal Singer