Hansen comes by his television habits honestly. His father owned an advertising agency and he taught his children to be wary of the big sell. "He would sit there and cut up commercials for us, so we've never been hooked." In the various bodies of work he has made over the last five years, Hansen seems to want to transfer his invulnerability from consumer culture to his viewers. "I guess I sort of make unsalable products." Those recent products include Beautyrest: an installation," a series of shaped paintings made from mattress ticking that are hung on warm pastel walls. The Effect is to convert the art gallery into a department store showroom. Hansen's written description of the work sounds like an advertising firm headed by Jeff Koons taking a sales pitch from early General Idea. The pitch is directed at comfort, which is why Hansen moved towards mattress ticking. "Most people find solace in their bed," he says. "So I drive around old apartment buildings and go through garbage with my mattress retrieval kit in my knapsack - garbage bags, a pair of gloves and an OLFA knife," He cuts off the ticking, washes it in cold water to keep the stains and installs it in configurations that still make reference to advertising. "One of them is a hand pushing a piece of cloth through a sewing machine; the one with black ticking is based on a cookie going into black coffee."

In his most recent work, a series of objects called "Creature Comforts," he abandons abstraction but stays with his ticking. The things are common - an electric razor, a 10-cup coffee maker, an automatic toaster and frying pan - but the look is wonderfully strange. By wrapping these appliances in floral satin ticking, you have the sense that Meret Oppenheim left her fur teacup behind and joined forces with Martha Stewart. Patterns are available so you can make your own covers at home.