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Victoria Haven

Statement

Haven’s work includes works on paper (drawings and cut structures), and material explorations ranging from delicate (reflective Mylar collaged onto fragile Gampi paper) to robust (wrought steel dipped in white plastic). These multiple avenues of investigation are united by Haven’s focused exploitation of the chosen material, which allows her to “emancipate line from form, gesture from surface, and to play with the interval between two and three dimensions”. (Seattle P-I, June 28th, 2007: "Abstraction takes on fresh dimensions in Haven's 'Iampayingattention' " by Nate Lippens)

Haven’s past work has referred obliquely to built space, and it has also drawn upon familiar elements of the Northwest landscape. In addition to their suggestion of actual and imagined places, these works explore an interior geography. Using abstraction, shifting perspectives, and intuitive process, Haven explores phenomena of fleeting sensations, energy fields, and severed space. Whether referencing the real or the imagined (or collapsing the distinction between them), Haven’s drawings create psychological as well as formal space.