Hello January. As we all welcome the new year, notions of fresh inspirations and aspirations flood our minds like undulating waves in a sea of possibility. Creative endeavors march forward, ready to ignite our artistic wanderlust and we’re here for it! This weekend, join Haven Gallery in celebration of an extraordinary lineup of exhibitions by artists Ryoko Rio, Li Shanmei, Kathie Olivas, Nikole Cooney, Babs Webb, and Craww.
Each artist brings their unique style and interpretations, ensuring a visual and emotional experience that challenges perspective, invites deep introspection, and lets you delve into imagined narratives. Don’t miss these inspiring, and thought-provoking, collections that promise to expand your appreciation of artistic expression.
View them in their entirety alongside all available inventory by visiting the gallery website! Searching for even more inspiration and feel like time travelling? Return and reflect upon past exhibitions and see what lifts your spirit.
Ryoko Rio, Li Shanmei, Kathie Olivas
Nikole Cooney, Babs Webb, Craww
Opening Reception with Artists: January 11, 2025| 6-8pm
Exhibition Dates: January 11 – February 16, 2025
Haven Gallery
50 Main St., Northport, NY 11768 | ph. (631) 757-0500
To inquire, please contact Erica 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.
Ryoko Rio, Companions
Press // Northport, NY– Haven Gallery is honored to present “Companions”, a solo show of new ceramic sculptures from Oregon based artist Ryoko Rio. “Companions” is Ryoko’s first solo show at the gallery and will feature new ceramic sculptures of rabbits, cats and dogs, adorned with varying hand painted and sculpted details. Each companion engages the viewer with bright eyes and buoyancy as they step one foot (or paw) in our world, with the other in a wellspring of folklore and fairytales. Rio’s sculptures return us to our childhood imaginary friends as they very much are still apart of who we are.
About Ryoko Rio //
Ryoko is an US based ceramic artist who grew up in Japan. Growing up in the city near a traditional pottery village gave her the opportunity to familiarize herself with clay at an early age. Her current works are mainly inspired by animals, especially dogs and cats, often mixed with elements that are influenced by Japanese folktales and her favorite books from childhood.
“I enjoy working in details both three dimensional and colorful, choosing materials to aim at making sculptures that look like paintings or jewelry with contrast in different textures.
My work is a reflection of my sensitive feelings and comfort that I receive from animals, as well as stories that are about misunderstood or unnoticed characters. I remember reading those stories gave me some warm feelings as a child, because I knew that those characters were no longer unnoticed or misunderstood as I read their stories. I felt like I found secret friends.
I also love visually cute, beautiful or sparkly things, and would like to embrace the simple joy I receive from those qualities through my creations. My work aims to provide my audience with dubious feelings by mixing the sweet and sad, the cute and strange in jewelry like sparkly forms. Expressing my sensitive self through creating these creatures helps me feel a sense of connection to the world as who I am.
Li Shanmei, The silence brought by ‘light’
Press// Northport, NY– Haven Gallery is honored to present “The silence brought by ‘light’”, a solo show of new work from China based artist Li Shanmei. “The silence brought by ‘light’” is Shanmei’s third solo show at the gallery and features eight new oil paintings depicting her youthful yet wise archetypes as they search themselves for their inner light and purpose. Stripped of both civilization and materialization yet surrounded by it, Shanmei’s sitters meditate in their own radiating light to find and familiarize themselves with their own self and better understand the human condition.
Mandalas continue to play an important role in many paintings, reflecting a motif of healing and focus on the journey, rather than the result. A reminder to focus on true matters of the heart and not let surface follies get in the way of one’s true self.
About Li Shanmei //
Li Shanmei is a Chinese artist born in 1989. She graduated from Yanbian University in 2014. Her oil paintings are known for depicting otherworldly children whose spirits and physical form are one with nature and life. Li’s paining technique is realistic yet illustrative, with an aesthetic embrace of computerized graphics. Her use of bold colors, geometry and mandalas are nods to systems of mathematics yet also embody tools of spiritual guidance and ascension. Li’s painted children represent new age deities that adapt to the innovations of technology while also maintaining homeostasis with their natural world.
Nikole Cooney, The Forest’s Edge
Press // Northport, NY– Haven Gallery is pleased to present “The Forests Edge, a solo exhibition of new sculptures by Illinois based artist Nikole Cooney. “The Forests Edge” features eight relief sculptures of different animals, botany and insects sculptured into their frames. One can find natural fauna details overlapping the ornate framework, providing a window of the natural world and its inhabitants, to the viewer. Nikole’s experience and affection for animals continues to inform her sculptures, highlighting the grace, heart and story of her woodland sitters.
About Nikole Cooney //
Nikole Cooney is a contemporary painter and sculptor living in Illinois. Nikole is best known for her surreal and fantastic imagery reflecting her connection with animals and deep appreciation for the natural world.
Nikole grew up in a country setting of the small town of Green Valley, Illinois. This sparsely populated but densely wooded environment along the Mackinaw River nourished a long-term appreciation for nature and wildlife. Her formative years were divided between caring for strays, pets, and creating images of the animals she admired.
College years proved to be a continuation of this lifestyle. Nikole obtained a degree in Veterinary Technology from Parkland College moving on to work with exotics at zoos in St. Louis and Peoria. Simultaneously she crammed as many art classes as possible into her schedule. The relentless pull of the art world never ceased. Nikole decided to pursue her artistic education by attending The School of the Art Institute of Chicago on a Presidential Scholarship.
Today Nikole is a full-time artist residing in Illinois. This tropical environment has proved to feed the work with new life and experiences. Her work has been exhibited extensively in several galleries in Chicago, Peoria, Baton Rouge, New York and more.
Babs Webb, A Beautiful Place
About Babs Webb //
Babs Webb is a Colorado-based dark fantasy artist with an affinity for the occult. Through strongly symbolic visuals, she strives to convey the visceral emotions that push the boundaries of our humanity; a shrewd clash of psychology and fantasy. Babs Received her BFA in Communications Design from Pratt Insititute. Some of her clients include Rosetta Press and Suntup Editions.
Craww, On Wind and Wing
Press //Northport, NY– Haven Gallery is honored to present “On Wind and Wing”, a solo show of new paintings from England based artist Craww. “On Wind and Wing” is Craww’s fourth solo show at the gallery and will feature seven new paintings exploring narratives dominated by winged mythological beings and the artists quintessential female protagonists. Dynamic compositions of aerial battles and stormy skies reflect the tumultuousness of these universal stories, as told through the artists emotional and classical hand, as the nature and challenges of the human condition are timelessly explored and expressed.
About Craww // Living on the edge of the Peak District in the UK and surrounded by hills, woods and open moorland, Craww’s work reflects an ongoing fascination with the natural world, and the relationships we have with it. His work creates narratives that are drawn from the beauty to be found in contradictions and ambiguity – life and death, beauty and decay, strength, fragility, the interplay between conflicting and complementing forces of nature and the constructs that mark our passing.
Each piece is a story, or an aspect of an unfolding story that writes itself as he works on it. As his muses pass through time and place they are accompanied in their journey by birds and animals. Often framed by classical and historical reference points and surrounded by flowing lines and natural forms, Craww works to uncover their ambiguous connections and hidden narratives and explore how the passage of time shapes the relationship between ourselves and nature. With successful shows in the UK and US, he has found collectors and fans around the world.
Kathie Olivas, Winter Mini Collection
About Kathie Olivas //
Kathie Olivas is a multi-media narrative artist who resides in Algodones, NM with her husband and fellow artist, Brandt Peters. She began drawing portraits as a child and found an extreme love for creating from her imagination a world that did not exist in her own reality, often driven by her connection with the alter ego and reflective of her own experiences with a rare genetic disorder.
For almost three decades, her work has explored society’s insatiable desire to assign ‘cuteness’ and our discomfort with the unknown. A dark blend of early American portraiture set in post apocalyptic times, her paintings and sculptures are a satirical look at how fear affects our sense of reality. Her wide eyed children and anthropomorphic creatures are meant to evoke a nostalgic reaction that reflects isolation and uncertainty, yet they also act as empowered alter egos. While these characters explore their new lonely worlds, they double as our narrators capable of developing their own defense mechanisms. They guide us through their reality as they experience it and yet, even in their company, we are granted no reassurance.
Olivas worked as a portraitist and caricature artist in the early to mid 90’s while attending college at the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL. Before graduation, she began her early gallery curatorial work at Hyde Park Fine Arts and Covivant Gallery, putting together numerous exhibitions featuring artists from around the globe that connected to a narrative or character driven vision. Her long career in the arts has allowed her to exhibit at galleries and museums around the world and also connect to other visionaries and collaborators. She and her husband own and operate Stranger Factory Gallery in Algodones, NM and the internationally acclaimed artist collective, Circus Posterus.
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