As we forge ahead into the holidays, we find ourselves searching for inspiration behind every twinkling light, wrapping memories with velvet ribbons and savoring the warmth of togetherness with those we love.
Reflecting on the experiences of the year, let us all pause in gratitude and appreciate every triumph while casting our gaze towards the horizon of what is yet to come.
In a time of introspection and hope, giving and receiving, join Haven Gallery as they celebrate solo exhibitions from Mall, Hitomi Aoki, Jesus Aguado, Benz and Chang, as well as their group show Little Big IX. Each collection brings unique perspectives and styles, offering viewers an opportunity to delve into the creative expression of the individual artist.
Don’t miss these beautiful new bodies of work; view them in their entirety alongside all available inventory by visiting the gallery website! If you still need more, return and reflect upon past exhibitions and see what unfurls within the layers of your imagination.
Mall ⭐ Hitomi Aoki ⭐ Jesus Aguado ⭐ Benz and Chang
Little Big IX
Opening Reception: Saturday, December 7, 2024 | 6-8pm
Exhibition Dates: December 7, 2024 – January 5, 2025
Haven Gallery
50 Main St., Northport, NY 11768 | ph. (631) 757-0500
To inquire, please contact Erica at Haven Gallery via email [email protected]
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.
Mall, New Works
Haven Gallery is pleased to present a new collection of work from Philippines based artist Mall for her fourth solo show at the gallery. Mall’s solo show features eighteen new mixed media resin paintings and drawings focusing on the friendship and bonding of her female sitter with a feline familiar. Flora, fauna and celestial motifs dance and glimmer creating a multidimensional, active scene representing the vitality and beauty of companionship and closeness. Interconnectivity and the harmony of all life continue to pervade Mall’s work, celebrating the beauty and symbiosis of all beings.
About Mall’s Process //
Mall layers paint and washi tape between layers of resin. She does this in trays and plates locally sourced in the Philippines. Her use of resin and its transparent nature allows her to build delicate layers that suspend her female figures amidst the natural world surrounding them. This technique allows for a three dimensional presentation highly inspired by traditional Japanese aesthetics, the stylization of anime and manga and their contemporary narratives.
Hitomi Aoki, Cradle
Haven Gallery is pleased to present “Cradle”, a collection of new paintings from Japan based Hitomi Aoki for her second solo show at the gallery. “Cradle” features nine ink and watercolor paintings, rendered through impressively small, tightly rendered compositions, reminiscent of historical, miniature artworks. Inspired by motifs and aesthetics spanning history and the globe, one finds influence from many cultures, timelessly depicted and theatrically presented, encapsulating the viewer into a world enshrouded in mystery, magic and the unearthly.
Hitomi offers a glimpse into a surreal dimension of chimeric beings and anthropomorphic cats as new worlds and perceptions are shared with the viewer. One can find aesthetic inspirations from Japan, India and even Persia through the influence of flora, clothing and patterned ornamentation, as well as illustrative tendencies from the West via the Golden Age of Illustration artists working out of England and the United States. An amalgamation of influences coalescing into surrealscapes revealing the inner dialogues and emotions of the artist are portrayed in fairytalesque narratives captivating and transporting viewers to a place only found in dreams.
Artist Statement //
The theme of this exhibition, “Cradle,” in addition to its original meaning, also represents a warm habitat for the monsters I imagine. The intricate patterns around my artwork serve as a window between the other world where they live and our real world. Each work is very small, but beyond its window lies a tremendous abyss, filled with a world that makes you want to peek in out of curiosity and touch it fearfully.
About Hitomi Aoki //
Hitomi Aoki was born in Gifu prefecture in 1987. She studied at Tama Art University and majored in oil painting. She now lives in Kanagawa prefecture.
She consistently draws mysterious life forms with overwhelming detailed lines and dots drawings by using papers and pen. Motifs of her works are made of intertwined ivy, petals and various parts of animals. Her consciousness spreads into every corner of these motifs and they bring us breathtaking surprise and pleasure to follow these motifs with our eyes.
Jesus Aguado, New Works
Haven Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new paintings by Spanish artist Jesús Aguado for his sixth exhibition at the gallery. Aguado’s surrealistic portraits weave together human and animal attributes, creating the personification of symbols and an altered state of being.
A play on historical portraiture, one finds the surreal influence of comics, with a penchant for spectacle, to create hyperactive environments that captivate the viewer, immersing them into a world that is both strange yet exuberant. Aguado’s creativity and impressive technique shape a world beyond our dreams, pressing the viewer to think beyond the limits of their own imagination.
About Jesus Aguado //
Jesus Aguado graduated in Fine Arts and started working for different publishing companies. Several years have already passed and what encourages him most to go ahead is the constant search of new styles and ways of expression through drawing. Keen on comic, he’s already been awarded in several competitions (Elgoibar, Tomelloso, Portugalete, Salamanca).
His illustrations are recognized by many schoolchildren because they appear in a lot of textbooks. Among other publishing companies, he collaborates with Anaya, Edelvives, Santillana, Siruela, Vicens Vives, Baula, Bruno, Casals, Kumon, Grimm Press (Taiwan) He has also worked for Junta de Castilla y Leon and Ser Padres Hoy magazine.
Benz and Chang, Changeling
Haven Gallery is pleased to present “Changeling”, a collection of new, haunting watercolor paintings by Oregon based artist Benz and Chang. “Changeling” represents the many states of being, both tangible and spectral, that depict the breaking or altering of space and time, merging choices of the past, present and future into one, painted materialization of life.
“Changeling” further demonstrates the evolution of the artists hand as a strong presence of color and stylized expression dominate the artists known sepia, vintage palettes, to create an even more surreal and dreamy atmosphere. Lingering shadows and ghostly apparitions remind the viewer of the permanence of all our choices and relationships, Whether favored or otherwise, these experiences are woven into the framework of our own being.
Artist Statement //
Here we see the decisions, joys and consequences of living multiple lives, both consecutive lives and simultaneous ones. The actress portrays a sleeping vampire cat. A ghost haunts her
reflection. Beatrice celebrates a birthday in the inferno. Lights out for another visit with Sister Sleep. The cat spirit might take off her mask, but might not. A few of these are pretend lives. Lives that don’t make geometric sense. Lives that have achieved a liminal state.
About Benz and Chang //
Highly inspired by Victorian photography trends and vintage imagery, Benz and Chang paints spiritual figures cohorting with the living, merging the planes of life and death. A deep connection is established between his sitters, adapting the paranormal into the normal. Levitation, anthropomorphic shadow and wrapped figures extend a supernatural bridge to the viewer, connecting us to secret spaces and transforming memories of the deceased into tangible presences.
Benz and Chang’s paintings serve as a channel to extend emotions of comfort and acceptance towards the more challenging and darker aspects of life. His motifs of verisimilitude suggest an overlapping of timelines and planes of existence beckoning the viewer to reconsider their own perspectives and realities. Benz began having experiences with spirits and hauntings at an early age. These experiences have continued throughout his life.
They have fueled his interest in dreams, ghosts, and clairvoyance from all angles, including the fictional, real, fraudulent, or imagined. Benz grew up in the American Southwest, and now enjoys living in the (haunted) Pacific Northwest. He has an extensive collection of odd photos from the early 20th century. Benz has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Chang is a fictional photography studio partner to Benz. He is a stuffed cat of the stuffed animal variety (not the taxidermy variety). Chang supplies the dark.
Little Big IX, Annual Small Works Group Show
A group collection of new works measuring 8 x 8 inches or smaller.
Exhibiting Artists //
Sean Mahan, Jennifer Hrabota Lesser, Ryoko Rio, Dewi Plass, Ren Phu, Hirabayashi Takahiro, Katie Gamb, Yuriko Shirou, Kari Christensen, Paige Carpenter, Claudia Griesbach Martucci, Valery Vecu Quitard, Bea Bastet, Shelby Clark, Flor Padilla, Ronald Companoca, Bill Ross, Naoto Hattori, Po Yan Leung, Brad Woodfin, Lynne Bellchamber, Arkadiusz Dzielawski, Lori Nelson, Dalo, Zoe Thomas, Etara, Shannon Taylor, Kyra Wilson, Aya Sakai (Cantik Bear), Mayumi Konno, Grace Aldrich, Anna Wilson, Alexis Savopoulos, Stephanie Law, Seada, Daria Theodora, David Lipson, Domina, Marc Le Rest, Kim Slate, Phoenix Chan, Vince Natale, Steven Kenny, Gina Matarazzo, Nadezda, Sophie Wilkins.
