Martin Aagaard Hansen
Biography
Martin Aagaard Hansen's (b. 1988, Denmark) work exists at the point of tension between abstraction and figuration, apparition and void. Approaching painting as an excavation, Aagaard Hansen unfolds his work through a continuous cycle of accumulation and erosion: layers of paint are built up only to be scraped back, punctured, and reworked in a physical negotiation with the surface. In this friction, the painting becomes a site to be entered where fragments, and traces hint at something concealed beneath.
Through runaway lines, erratic splotches, and overworked fields of color, the paintings reject a spatial logic, enforcing a dissonance between figure and ground. The result is a subtle, visceral unease, as though something is off. Motifs surface from an archive of misremembered scenes and ethereal encounters, recurring through repetition and gradual transformation. Within these fields, elongated shadows emerge with a quiet inevitability, lingering as silhouettes in the corner of the eye -before locking into an uncanny permanence.
Martin Aagaard Hansen holds an MFA from The Royal Danish Academy (2015). Recent solo exhibitions include: Trumpets of the sky, Union Pacific, London (2025), Two o' clock spell, OTP Copenhagen (2024), The Eternal Village, Bibeau Krueger, New York (2023), The Tired Mask of Spring, Salon 75, Copenhagen (2020) and Gæstens drøm (The dream of the guest), Magasin lotus, Copenhagen (2018). Selected group exhibitions include: Hard scent saloon, Stalgade 11, Copenhagen (2024), The Lurid Season, M+B, Los Angeles (2022), Zeitgeist, Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen (2022), Triple Burner, Union Pacific, London (2021). Aagaard Hansen lives and works in Oslo, Norway.