A sculptural project built from found material and reintroduced into the city
Operation Tumbleweed began with the act of collecting tumbleweeds from desert-adjacent environments, stabilizing them, painting them, and re-situating them within urban space. In their original state, tumbleweeds already carry a strong mythology: drift, abandonment, migration, survival, and the visual language of the American West. Hanrahan’s intervention intensifies that symbolism rather than replacing it, turning a wind-driven natural form into a deliberate sculptural signal.
Placed against streets, curbs, walls, utility infrastructure, and overlooked corners of Los Angeles, the tumbleweed becomes both out of place and strangely inevitable. It can read as artifact, interruption, relic, joke, monument, or warning all at once. That instability is central to the project. The work asks viewers to reconsider what belongs in public space, what becomes visible there, and how quickly meaning changes once an ordinary object is transformed by color, scale, and context.
The project’s visual language grew from movement, contrast, and repetition
Hanrahan’s broader practice moves across fine art, graphic design, painting, sculpture, and digital media, and that multidisciplinary background is deeply felt in Operation Tumbleweed.
Over time, the series expanded through different colors, settings, and placements, allowing the tumbleweed to take on multiple identities depending on where it appeared.
An artist book that gathers the work into a single visual narrative
The Operation Tumbleweed book extends the series into editorial form...
“This aspect of the LA art scene is truly captivating and enjoyable, with the artist showcasing a style that stands out like nothing we’ve encountered before.”— Julie G.
John Hanrahan
John Hanrahan is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans fine art, graphic design, painting, sculpture, and digital technology.