HAND SIGNED By Diana Hsnsen ETCHING LTD. ED.

If post is up, this original numbered etching Signed lower right By "D. Hansen" for Diana Hansen (American, born 1942) and dated February 1977; titled lower left "Metamorfosi," with number and limitation "/100." still is available for sale and pick up in Palm Springs. Paper dimensions: 23.75 H x 19.5 W inches. Diana Hansen's art is a unique combination of tradition and personality. Her paintings and prints use traditional techniques and imagery as a framework for Hansen's own experience of the world; a view of reality that transcends the individual and seeks the universal. "As an artist, I am influenced by everything," Hansen states, "but my work actually comes from another reality; it's another way of seeing." She has devoted most of her life to "another reality," a reality modeled on the way of life of Native Americans. Hansen, born in San Francisco in 1942 and a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, has lived and worked in Rome since 1963. However, her environment has influenced her art less than her preoccupation with Native American art and culture, and she has also written several books about Native Americans. Having studied art at a Native American cultural center as a child, she believes that "Native American culture is the only official American culture." Her complex and richly textured etchings are reminiscent of metaphysical Native American sand paintings, and many of her titles refer to Native American rituals and ceremonies. But like Native American artists, Hansen is not interested in academic imitations. She allows her paintings to emerge spontaneously from her unconscious. In this way, the traditional colors and symbols of the Navajo, Pima, Hopi, and other Native American tribes are transformed into a contemporary vision that uses the past to illuminate the present. As a printmaker, Hansen has experimented with a variety of techniques and processes. Recently, she developed an original method for hand-painted relief prints. This makes each print a unique image with a rare, sculptural elegance. Her etchings are unusually subtle and intimate