Artist and designer Hanna Hansdotter’s mold-blown glass sculptures and low-relief wall works ooze, slump, and bulge, their soft forms interrupted by the hard lines left behind by the casting process. Trained at the preeminent Swedish glass manufacturers at Kosta Boda Glass Center and the Orrefors National School of Glass, Hansdotter’s rebellious and individualistic vessels remain defiantly craft-oriented in their techniques. Over time, she has developed a practice of conceptual design overlaid with a punk sense of artistry, apparent in her sculptures’ warped and distorted silhouettes produced in the process of constraining hot glass within heavy iron frameworks. Once the metal cages are removed, the result is both high-gloss and heavily baroque, a merger of amorphous, fleshy forms and variegated surface embellishments. Today, Hansdotter works in Glasriket or “Glass Country,” the famed center of Sweden’s historic industrial glassblowing dating to 1742.
Hansdotter is the recipient of numerous awards, grants, and accolades, including the ELLE Decoration Design Awards, the Lauritz Craft Prize, and the Residence Arts & Crafts Award. In 2020, she received the Åke Andrén Grant in support of her exhibition Fading Prints at the Prins Eugen Waldemarsudde Museum. Since graduating in 2017 from Konstfack University of Arts, Craft and Design, Hansdotter’s work has frequently been exhibited within museums, including at the Gävle Art Center, Liljevalchs, and the Glazenhuis Flemish Centre for Contemporary Glass Art. Her sculptures are in the collections of the Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft, the Public Art Agency Sweden, The Glass Factory at Boda, and the National Museum in Stockholm.
HANNA HANSDOTTER
b. 1984, Sweden
EDUCATION
2017 Hot glass sculpting, CMOG, Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY
2017 BA, Konstfack University of Arts, Craft and Design, Stockholm, Sweden
2012 Technical glassblowing, Orrefors National School of Glass, Sweden
2010 Qualified glassblowing and cold working, Kosta Glass Center, Sweden
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2020 Ornamental Abstractions Of Industrial Memories, Kulturcentrum Ronneby, Ronneby,
Sweden
Fading Prints, in association with Åke Andrén Grant, Prins Eugen Waldemarsudde,
Stockholm, Sweden
Rabbit Hole, Kalmar Konstmuseum, Kalmar, Sweden
2.0, CFHILL, Stockholm, Sweden
2018 Fading Prints, CFHILL, Stockholm, Sweden
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 Summer Group Show, HB381, New York, NY, USA
2023 Generation Glas, Chill, Stockholm, Sweden
2022 Enter Art Fair, The Hole, Copenhagen, Denmark
The Collection, Gävle Konstcentrum, Gävle, Sweden
2021 Once Twice, The Hole, New York, NY
Market, Steinsland Berliner, Liljevalchs, Stockholm, Sweden
Chart Art Fair, Steinsland Berliner, Charlottenborg Kunsthal, Copenhagen, Denmark
East Hampton Hole, The Hole, New York, NY
2020 Palatset, The Glass Factory Boda, Boda, Sweden
Chart Art Fair, Steinsland Berliner, Stockholm, Sweden
2019 Swedish Glass, Glazenhuis, Lommel, Belgium
Bachelor, Steinsland Berliner, Stockholm, Sweden
Sculpture, Sculpture, Sculpture!, CFHILL, Stockholm, Sweden
2018 Dallas Art Fair, Richard Heller Gallery, Dallas, TX
Meet and Greet, The Glass Factory, Boda, Sweden
Immersion, Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2017 What's Your DNA, Dutch Design Week, Eindhoven, Netherlands
Hommage, Kosta Boda Art Gallery, Kosta, Sweden
What’s Your DNA, Form/Design Center, Malmö, Sweden
COMMISSIONS AND PROJECTS
2022 Commission work for Hötorget with Vasakronan, Stockholm, Sweden
2021 Documentary SVT, Designhistorier
2020 Store front installation, Selfridges, London, UK
2019 Public art installation, Linneuniversity of Kalmar, Sweden
Designer of The Glass Factory Boda yearly museum collection
2018 Absolute Vodka, commercial
Art Collaboration with Artilleriet, Göteborg, Sweden
2017 Designer/ Artist at Orrefors Kosta Boda, Sweden
Interior installation, Sneakersnstuff, New York, NY & London, UK
Hommage, Kosta Boda 275 years, ”Nightfall series,” design commission for Kosta Boda
GRANTS AND AWARDS
2023 Swedish Government Export Prize for Cultural and Creative Industries, Artist of the Year
2020 Åke Andrén Artist Grant
The Swedish Arts Grants Committee, two-year working grant
2019 Lauritz Craft Prize
Residence Magazine, Design Award, Craft of the Year
2018 The Swedish Arts Grants Committee, one-year working grant
New Glass Review (published in book), Corning, NY
Plaza Interior, Design Award, Craft of the Year
ELLE Decoration, Swedish Design Awards
2017 Estrid Ericsson Travel Grant
Studio Grant, The Glass Factory Boda, Sweden
Degree Work Grant, Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design
Konstfack Travel Grant for International Cultural Exchange, Corning, New York
Fredrika Bremer Scholarship Fund
2016 J.L. Eklund Foundation for Craft
Petersenska Hemmets Scholarship Fund
Kosta Boda Working Grant
Fredrika Bremer Scholarship Fund
2015 Petersenska Hemmets Scholarship Fund
COLLECTIONS
2022 County of Gävle, Sweden
2021 Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft, Gothenburg, Sweden
2020 County of Växjö, Sweden
2019–2021 Statens Konstråd, Public Art Agency, Sweden
2018 The Glass Factory Boda, Glass Museum, Sweden
2018, 2019 County of Uppsala, Sweden
2017 Nationalmuseum, Swedish National Museum collection
