Susurrus: Layers of whispers
Susurrus: Layers of Whispers is a developing umbrella body of work holding my evolving relationships with Water, Earth, Sky, and the sentience between.
These works are traces of encounter using my material practice triad of Susurrus | Communion | Awen, and are still in a phase of deepening relationship.
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Earthworm Movements in Kokowai and Gold
Karen Hansen, Earthworm Movements in Kokowai and Gold (2025) Monoprint, hand-gathered and studio-processed red ochre, metal leaf
Earth Index
This work is a monoprint taken from the passage of an earthworm beneath a paving tile surrounding my ritual firepit. Using hand-gathered and studio-processed red ochre, I lifted an index of the earthworm’s movement, then leafed the negative space in gold.
Earthworm has come to me as an ally since 2022, carrying the energy of transmutation: the breaking down of spent matter, the reworking of what has fallen, and the slow creation of fertile ground for what may grow next.
In this small indexical work, Earthworm is collaborator, mark-maker, and teacher. Its movement becomes a script of decomposition and renewal, a reminder that the sacred is often carried by the smallest bodies doing the quietest work.
At a time when much of contemporary life is separated from soil, seasons, nourishment, and outdoor relationship, this work asks us to remember the power of the small to create the conditions for abundance.
This work is a monoprint taken from the passage of an earthworm beneath a paving tile surrounding my ritual firepit. Using hand-gathered and studio-processed red ochre, I lifted an index of the earthworm’s movement, then leafed the negative space in gold.
Earthworm has come to me as an ally since 2022, carrying the energy of transmutation: the breaking down of spent matter, the reworking of what has fallen, and the slow creation of fertile ground for what may grow next.
In this small indexical work, Earthworm is collaborator, mark-maker, and teacher. Its movement becomes a script of decomposition and renewal, a reminder that the sacred is often carried by the smallest bodies doing the quietest work.
At a time when much of contemporary life is separated from soil, seasons, nourishment, and outdoor relationship, this work asks us to remember the power of the small to create the conditions for abundance.
Ponga (1)
Karen Hansen, (2025) Ponga Index: Black Alder Ink in Mangakakahi Streamwater on Cotton Paper. 175x175x15 mm.
This indexical print is a conversation of unity, with Ponga (NZ Silver Fern) monoprinted on 100% Cotton 300gsm watercolour paper, with Black Alder ink - hand processed in studio using water from the Mangakakahi Stream, where the Alder Tree was growing.
The curvilinear graphic marks, made by the ponga trunk, are reminiscent of ancient cultural visual language.
Site and place specific, to Linton Park Rotorua in the gentle foothills leading into Mt. Ngongotaha.
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Man in hat and greatcoat
A photographic index of spring water responding to an energetic impression I felt moving through my body, but did not recognise as my own.
Holding a petri dish of spring water in my left hand, I projected the energy I was feeling toward the water with my right hand, while asking, from the relational perspective that water carries consciousness:
“What is this energy?”
After approximately thirty seconds of focused transmission, I partially froze the sample using a method informed by Veda Austin’s crystallography research.
The image shown here developed within the ice crystals at the centre of the petri dish after approximately seven minutes of freezing. It was photographed with the dish held against window light, the green of my garden passing through the ice.
This work sits within my wider inquiry into water as witness, collaborator, and index
Holding a petri dish of spring water in my left hand, I projected the energy I was feeling toward the water with my right hand, while asking, from the relational perspective that water carries consciousness:
“What is this energy?”
After approximately thirty seconds of focused transmission, I partially froze the sample using a method informed by Veda Austin’s crystallography research.
The image shown here developed within the ice crystals at the centre of the petri dish after approximately seven minutes of freezing. It was photographed with the dish held against window light, the green of my garden passing through the ice.
This work sits within my wider inquiry into water as witness, collaborator, and index
Rain Index on Kokowai (2025)
Beetle Index on Acacia (2026)
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Womb: 1
Karen Hansen, Womb: 1 (2023) Earth Pigment, Paua shell, Acrylic.
SOLD (Private Collector)
Womb: 1 is rich with visual symbology relating to Papatūānuku, the Great Earth Mother, and to water as a vessel of memory, spirit, and ancestral knowledge.
The central form evokes the womb as a sacred site of origin: a threshold between body, earth, lineage, and becoming. Pāua shell and earth pigment hold the work in relationship with whenua and moana, while the fallopian structure speaks to strength, whakapapa, wairua, and the generative intelligence carried through the feminine body.
The central form evokes the womb as a sacred site of origin: a threshold between body, earth, lineage, and becoming. Pāua shell and earth pigment hold the work in relationship with whenua and moana, while the fallopian structure speaks to strength, whakapapa, wairua, and the generative intelligence carried through the feminine body.
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S-26
Karen Hansen, S-26 (2024)Earth pigment, acrylic, no-more-nails, living plant matter
Sold, private collection
Moulded from an anatomical human heart and painted with a mixture of earth pigment and acrylic, S-26 was originally created as a sample work to test the material viability of casting, surface treatment, and the cohabitation of living plant matter within an art object.
The work became immediately successful as both experiment and artefact. Its living plant element transformed the heart from symbolic organ into habitat: a small site of survival, tenderness, and regeneration.
Although conceived as a test piece, S-26 sold within hours of being shared, affirming the strength of the concept and opening a pathway into future works concerned with embodiment, ecology, and the threshold between human anatomy and living earth.
Moulded from an anatomical human heart and painted with a mixture of earth pigment and acrylic, S-26 was originally created as a sample work to test the material viability of casting, surface treatment, and the cohabitation of living plant matter within an art object.
The work became immediately successful as both experiment and artefact. Its living plant element transformed the heart from symbolic organ into habitat: a small site of survival, tenderness, and regeneration.
Although conceived as a test piece, S-26 sold within hours of being shared, affirming the strength of the concept and opening a pathway into future works concerned with embodiment, ecology, and the threshold between human anatomy and living earth.