In RECONSTITUTIONS, Steve Hanson returns to his California art origins, tracing a line back to his formative years at CalArts in the late 1980s while rooting firmly in the present-day landscape of Santa Barbara’s coastal ecology. Known locally as a surfer, community gardener, and meticulous re-shaper of land, Hanson transforms the detritus of his landscaping practice—organic matter, discarded wood, sun-bleached remnants of earthwork—into sculptural gestures that oscillate between shrine and artifact.

By relocating these materials from their outdoor contexts into the gallery space, Hanson stages an intimate re-reading of Land Art traditions. Rather than monumental interventions upon vast terrains, RECONSTITUTIONS embraces a humble, human scale, creating indoor micro-landscapes where decay, fragmentation, and renewal become subjects of quiet veneration.

The works resist permanence. Weathered branches, uprooted flora, and raw textures are assembled with a reverence for their transience, inviting viewers to consider entropy not as loss but as transformation. Through acts of salvage and decontextualization, Hanson subverts assumptions of what constitutes waste, proposing instead a poetics of care—small altars to what has been shed, what has survived, and what could germinate anew.

This exhibition marks a return and a continuation: a full-circle moment where Hanson’s early conceptual training converges with decades of hands-in-the-soil experience, creating a practice that is both ecological and devotional, sculptural and horticultural.

Join us for an evening that celebrates cycles of tending, discarding, and rediscovery—where art is not only made from the land but made with it.