Review: In Channing Hansen’s knitted artworks, some of the credit goes to the sheep

Process and materials matter deeply to Los Angeles artist Channing Hansen: The title information for each piece in his show at Marc Selwyn Fine Art includes not just the types of fibers he used but the names of the individual sheep that provided them.

So a piece’s materials list might include not only banana cellulose, bamboo, pearl dust and photoluminescent recycled polyester but also “California Variegated Mutant (Hattie), California Variegated Mutant (Maggie), California Variegated Mutant (Millie) … Romeldale (January), Romeldale (Pallas),” and so on.

The resulting work has a ragged energy that appears spontaneous and loose. However, in making these knitted pieces stretched over frames, Hansen uses computer algorithms programmed with scientific and mathematical data to guide texture, color and pattern.

Hansen's methods are idiosyncratic and fascinating in themselves, and the work they yield can feel inexhaustibly surprising. His show here last year was a revelation. This time around, the work seems more temperate, less risky. Verve is still evident but served up more sparingly.

The dozen skein paintings present disheveled amalgams of hues and weaves. Densities shift from inch to inch across the surfaces, tightly knitted passages suddenly loosening into porous nets or rolling into ropy twists. Loops dangle. Seams are stretched open and knotted shut.

Each of the 16 interlocking triangular panels in "Index-Manifold" exemplifies one of Hansen's techniques. It's a scintillating sampler, and the rest of the works exhibit, accordingly, only a fraction of its wildly exciting range.

Hansen's artisanal, DIY sourcing of yarns and dyes delivers a palette that looks, oddly, like a craft store catalog of exuberant synthetics: hot pink, acid yellow, cherry red, variegated purple and royal blue, all threaded through with shimmering holographic polymers. The color scheme that prevails in the works feels common, pre-packaged and out of sync with the raw, tactile exuberance of their making. Maybe, though, that contradiction is apt. Because the continuous, knitted surfaces, with all of their interrupted patterns and jarring adjacencies, evoke the discontinuity of collage, perhaps a patchwork response is inevitable.

Marc Selwyn Fine Art, 9953 S. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. Closes Saturday. (310) 277-9953, www.marcselwynfineart.com