The days are swiftly passing as we glide into the year with anticipation and excitement for what lies ahead… and with it, a surge of fresh inspirations to ignite our deepest senses. Join Haven Gallery as they unveil new collections of work by Ingrid Tusell, Chris Mars, Kate Domina, and Valerie Savarie. Journey into the depths of imagination as each artists takes us on an adventure into their creative ideations where all things are possible. Immerse yourself in these enchanting exhibitions that are sure to leave you awe-inspired and longing for more.
Don’t miss these new bodies of work; view them in their entirety alongside all available inventory by visiting the Haven Gallery website! If you still need more and are looking to add to your personal collection, reflect upon past exhibitions and fuel your artistic wanderlust.
Ingrid Tusell, Chris Mars, Kate Domina, Valerie Savarie
Opening Reception: February 24, 2024 | 6-8pm
Exhibition Dates: February 24 – March 24, 2024
Haven Gallery
50 Main St., Northport, NY 11768 | ph. (631) 757-0500
To inquire, please contact Erica at Haven Gallery via email info@havengallery.com
About the Gallery //
Haven Gallery is run by Erica Berkowitz and Joseph Weinreb. The gallery first opened in 2015 in the Carriage House of historic Northport, NY. Within two years, the gallery doubled in size and expanded into the entire Carriage House building. Through their successful in-house exhibitions and presentations at art fairs both domestic and international, Haven opened a secondary location at 90 Main St., in 2020, during the height of the Covid pandemic. It was at that point, that Erica and Joseph knew it was time to find a permanent location for their artists. In January of 2022, they bought the building at 50 Main st., and opened its doors as Haven Gallery’s perennial home.
Haven Gallery’s focus is on exhibiting emotionally, intellectually and imaginatively driven, representational artwork that connects the audience and artist with universal axioms and passions. We work with both emerging and established artists who transcend their medium and subjects by exploring the world around them as well as the one within themselves.
Ingrid Tusell, Tribal Enigma
February 24th – March 24th, 2024
Haven Gallery is pleased to present Spain based artist Ingrid Tusell for her third solo show at the gallery. “Tribal Enigma” features thirteen oil paintings of powerful female personas deeply rooted in nature and folklore. Tusell looks to stories passed down for generations amid many cultures, and envisages the presence, magic and influences of these lessons. A reverence for the natural world and forces unseen are painted through the artists known palette of blues and greens creating a serene yet symbolic connection to all living things.
About Ingrid Tusell //
Ingrid Tusell is an artist who was born in Barcelona and is now living in an old, restored mill in the mountainous terrain of Teruel, Spain. Her compositions have human subjects who are reminiscent of strong female indigenous warriors and goddesses. These empowering images of women are amongst fauna and flora associated with the stories they represent. Ingrid’s fascination with nature, life, and death, the divine feminine, and legends of tribes and myth, inspire her to create these hypnotizing portraits.
She has exhibited in various parts of the United States in galleries like Alexi Era Gallery in Eugene, Oregon, Haven Gallery in Northport, New York, La Bodega Gallery in San Diego, California and Swoon Gallery in Los Angeles, California, as well as galleries in Portugal. Tusell’s stirring, fantastical, and natural compositions are primarily created using oils on canvas or wood.
Artist Statement //
This set of works is inspired by the ancestral legends that we as a human tribe have created. These legends feature fantastic beings and goddesses of ancient mythology that speak of hidden forces and serve as symbols of the powerful aspects pf the magic and folklore. They stem from different cultures but all try to explain the mystery of life, the hidden aspects of everything that we can not explain, but that happens, the feeling of what exists but cannot be seen. A way of believing in nature and its cycles, in the human soul and in our ancestors who tried to leave a message, in short, the magic of life.
Chris Mars, Equinox
February 24th – March 24th, 2024
Northport, NY– Haven Gallery is pleased to present “Equinox”, a solo exhibition of new work by Minnesota based artist Chris Mars. “Equinox” is Mars’s third solo show with the gallery and will feature thirteen oil paintings inspired by the moment of time in which both the light or day, and the dark or night, are equally represented in length. A symbolic time when all life mutually shares this balance and reminder of the connection and sameness amongst us.
Mars brilliant use of color and light reflect that of the equinox, but even more, the beauty and soul of his sitters. Known for portraying the oppressed and outcasted, deeply inspired by the experiences of his older brother in mental health, Mars canonizes his figures and bears their souls. Emotion, love, strife and other emotions draw and connect the viewer to the sameness that we all share as humans.
Artist Statement //
Twice each year, the forces of nature remind us that equality is possible. Twice each year, every living thing bound to planet Earth will experience – consciously or unaware – an absolute balance of day and night. The specifics of this grand celestial equity will not happen as a simultaneous event; it will present itself as a series of events as the world turns, the sun rises, the sun sets. Each human being standing and breathing within their own terrestrial reality will, as they might any other day, have the opportunity to look at another human being’s place in time with joy or resentment, celebrating or just believing that someone else has more light or darkness than they do. But the fact of such an experience is that, on a given day twice each year, in light and dark at very least, we are all the same.
On our longest night we can be certain that our longest day is coming. Yes, the extremes can be hard to navigate. But nature itself dictates the extremes will not last. Nature seeks balance, just like I do.
My palette is based on the equinox. My work advocates for the spirit it embodies.
About Chris Mars //
Chris Mars was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1961, the youngest of seven children. When Mars was five years old, his eldest brother, Joe, was institutionalized for Schizophrenia. Memories of the archaic institution, society’s prejudgment, medical anonymity and famial shame had a profound impact on the young Mars, setting him on a life path of creative expression seeking to “…free the oppressed; to champion the persecuted, and the submissive; to liberate through revelation the actualized Self in those proposed by some to have no self at all.”
Mars’s work has exhibited in museums worldwide including Halle St. Pierre (Paris), Casa Dell’Architettura/Acquario (Rome), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (CA), Laguna Art Museum (CA), Ruby Green Contemporary Art Space (TN), Grand Central Art Center (CA), Haas Fine Arts Center (WI), Art Center South Florida (Miami), Ft. Wayne Museum of Art (IN) and Louisville Visual Arts (KY), as well as American Visionary Art Museum (MD), Longview Museum of Fine Arts (TX), Museum of Fine Arts Florida State University (FL), Minnesota History Center (St. Paul), Mesa Contemporary Arts (AZ), The Tweed Museum of Art (MN), Weisman Art Museum (MN) and Minneapolis Institute of Art (MN), each of which hold Mars’s work in the permanent collection.
Additionally an accomplished filmmaker, Mars’ work has screened at numerous prestigious festivals worldwide including Sundance, SXSW, Jerusalem International, Denver Starz, Palm Springs Shortfest and many more.
As founding member of the seminal Minneapolis band The Replacements, Mars has also been a Grammy nominee. Subsequent to his departure from the band, Mars released four acclaimed solo albums before dedicating himself full time to visual art. Now twenty-two years after his last release, Mars is releasing another album in November of 2017. All proceeds from “Note to Self” will be donated to Second Harvest Heartland, a Minnesota-based food shelf serving the upper Midwest.
Kate Domina, Eat Your Heart Out
February 24th – March 24th, 2024
Haven Gallery is honored to present “Eat Your Heart Out”, an exhibition of new paintings by Canada based Domina (Kate Domina). “Eat Your Heart Out” is Domina’s second solo show at the gallery and features nine new paintings continuing the artists exploration of dualities as they pertain to female identity.
Artist Statement //
“Eat Your Hear Out” is Domina’s most recent probe into the world of surreal feminism. Using the metaphor of sugar, this series explores the dichotomy of shame and pleasure. These oil paintings intersect candy coated palettes and jarring symbolism to examine what it means to be female in contemporary culture. Domina’s Jungian approach to portraiture bonds her with the viewer through a shared sense of vulnerability, silent rage and voyeuristic pleasure.
About Kate Domina //
Kate Domina is a Canadian oil painter of surreal portraits. Domina has training from the University of Toronto, Sheridan College and Ontario College of Art and Design. Having recently left Toronto, she designed and built her coastal studio and home on the island of Newfoundland, Canada where she currently paints.
Valerie Savarie, “Tales of Forgotten Familiars”
February 24th – March 24th, 2024
Opening reception with Valerie, February 24th, 6-8pm.
Haven Gallery is honored to present Colorado based artist, Valerie Savarie, for her first solo show, entitled “Tales of Forgotten Familiars”. “Tales of Forgotten Familiars” features 19 new works, many made out of altered books, serving as portraits of animal familiars. Each familiar takes inspiration from multiple sources including the story itself, the author and the personal inscription.
Savarie’s books find the emergence of its sitter through hand painted, carved and embroidered details that bear timeless attire and monochromatic palettes, ultimately indistinguishing time and place. These characters manifest from sources of love and creativity and find themselves continuing to carry and connect those of the past with the present.
Artist Statement //
One no longer needs to read a book to find out what the story is about. It is equally effortless to find the story of the author’s life.
Lost within the pages is the story of the person who once owned the book. Sometimes, there are underlined words, dog-eared pages, the person’s name written inside, which can give clues. Occasionally, there is an inscription – either by the owner or to the recipient from the bestower. Long before the book itself fades from public fancy, these participants have been forgotten, lost in time.
It is from these inscriptions, paired with bits of the author’s life and the story itself, that the entire spirit of the book has come to be, creating an entirely new chapter that is not the end, but a new beginning. These new characters have been conceived as “familiars.”
Familiars are said to be the spirits of our alter egos in the form of animal companions. They have a life all their own yet remain tethered to their human. And so these anthropomorphized animals carry the spirits of the book into today, telling their own story while also being trapped in yesterday, unable to cut the tie to their long since deceased human counterpart.
About Valerie Savarie //
Living in the artistic shadow of her older sister Valerie Savarie turned to creative writing in her teens to allow her own artistic voice to be heard from beyond her sibling’s veil. Deep inside, the visual artist waited patiently for a time when the shadow would grow faint. When that time came, words and visual art had formed an inseparable bond, and so her book sculptures came to be.
In selecting books, it is important that they be published before 1972 (or, is at least as old as her). Sometimes the book instantly creates a visual concept and other times, Valerie seeks out a book that will echo her mental vision. Taking the written story within, she reinterprets it into a three-dimensional piece by cutting, sewing and painting (all done by hand without the use of power tools), thus creating a multidimensional collage while still leaving the majority of the book intact.
Every page is kept bound into the book as it is important that her pieces retain their intrinsic book characteristics. Each page that is visible is purposely selected to be seen – whether it be specific words, lack of words, images or a combination thereof. Words are as important as the visuals Valerie creates when making her book sculptures.
The characters she makes—the inhabitants of the books—are always painted in black and white, which allows them to live in balance within their predominantly black and white (text and page) surroundings. Sometimes they are animals; sometimes they are more human. Regardless of their species, the eyes typically lend themselves to a more humanistic expression and are the last thing Valerie paints. “Eyes tell a story within their own orb and greatly impact the feeling of a piece and so completing them last, I solidify the overall emotion I want to express”.
As her book sculptures evolve, Valerie Savarie finds her work growing beyond short stories, moving towards epic series – generating from a moment in time, page by page, book by book.
Her art is in private collections across the globe as well as in public collections in multiple libraries, hotels and universities.- in the US.
