Currently on view at The Company in Los Angeles is Predicting the Present—a solo presentation of work by Tacoma, Washington-based Elias Hansen. Showing concurrently at The Company with a solo exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist, Adam Janes, Hansen approaches his chosen artistic medium of glass in much the same way as Janes does his wax, due to “a shared interest in the alchemic conversions in sculpture,” as the gallery notes, meaning that “both artists engage the process of altering solids into liquids and back into solids by their respective glassblowing and candle making.” Hansen’s work is made up of various reassembled pieces of discarded furniture and other items, which he has then attached hand-blown glass circles to. These convex windows—whether attached to furniture or the gallery wall—allow the viewer to peer into a sort of proverbial rabbit hole, wherein the other side reveals an aged-looking photograph taken by Hansen of a rundown house or vehicle. With titles like Just because you’re careful with your meth lab, doesn’t mean your house won’t burn down because of bad wiring and “Blame your son,” he said, slamming the door on his way out to the truck, the pieces recall disturbing narratives from the supposed lives of each item. It’s as if these are the dialogues you might hear whispered up from a desk in passing at a flea market or yard sale, if it could speak.

Elias Hansen studied glass at the New Orleans School of Glass and Print in New Orleans, LA and printmaking and bookarts at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. His work has been exhibited internationally in solo and group shows, including Kodiak at Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA; Wood at Maccarone, New York, NY; Sack of Bones at Peres Projects, Los Angeles, CA; Suddenly: Where We Live Now at Cooley Gallery, Reed College, Portland, OR; Kultur der Angst at Halle 14, Leipzig, Germany; and more. He was the artist in residence at Tacoma Museum of Glass in 2007 and 2008, and his work has been reviewed by the New York Times, Seattle Weekly, Seattle P.I. and elsewhere.