Life-size versions of the artist’s characters using mannequins from BAM’s storage are on display through August 11. COURTESY OF BELLEVUE ARTS MUSEUM
You know that moment when you’re in the middle of a hangout with your friends—slamming beers, intermittently hitting a bong, shoving chips into your mouth, binging old episodes of Project Runway—and suddenly a drunk-stoned realization overtakes you. Maybe all this eagerness to get and stay intoxicated comes from a place of deep unhappiness and frustration with a perceived lack of control over your life.
The characters in Simon Hanselmann’s comics constantly wrestle with this moment. Instead of letting the smoke clear, going to bed, and shaking off this momentary recognition of existential anguish—they lean into it. With drugs, with drink, with darkness, with weird sex, with selfishness, with addiction, with a lack of empathy.
