About Beth…

Beth Hansen grew up in Dover, DE and is an alum of the Corcoran College of Art + Design, and has been an artist in Washington, DC for over 20 years. While studying printmaking and sculpture, she fell in love with screen printing.

“My mom was an art teacher, so we didn’t have a pantry growing up; we had an art closet. We had done some very DIY screen printing on the dining room table as a child, but once I could see what this medium could really do, I was hooked.”

Beth worked at the Hand Print Workshop International studio with her mentor, Dennis O’Neil, for four years. There she learned the “magical secrets” of non-linear screen printing, which focuses more on experimentation and manipulating the surface of the print to create varied editions, rather than executing a replicable design.

“[Non-linear screen printing] takes advantage of the different facets of the medium: the drawing, painting, photographic, and sculptural. You can push the drawing and textural aspects when creating stencils, the painterly by how you’re manipulating the ink through the screen, the photographic when you’re creating the screen itself, and the sculptural has you’re laying down layers of color on top of each other. There’s a lot of different threads to tug at, and after 20 years, I haven’t found the end and I’m never bored.”

Today, Beth likes to treat the studio as a “mad scientist’s laboratory,” manipulating color and surface to create one-of-a-kind pieces and editioned prints.

“I prefer to work on paper and static surfaces because you can get a lot more weird than when you’re working on fabric that will be worn. I can add as many layers as I want, adhere materials or sand down the surface… I can go where the image takes me rather than be concerned with what’s reproduceable.”

Beth’s work pulls from her many different interests, including biology, history, and anthropology. Her work often focusses on nature and its oddities, as well as humanity’s interaction with it.

She shares her passion for screen printing by collaborating with local artists in the studio, workshops, and activations. In 2012, Beth Hansen helped organize the Arcade, a group focusing primarily on print methods to engage with the community. Now the Arcade is the front-facing facet of her screen printing business. She produces items sold in local stores and teaches various screen printing methods through workshops, and activations.

“‘Play and get weird’ are phrases I use often when teaching workshops. I want folks to get to experience what this medium can do and have fun with it. If every print looks the same at the end of the day, I haven’t done my job.”