The wheel turns and we turn with it as we reach further into the season, transformation bends and new inspirations begin. You’ll want to mark your calendars for May 23rd because Haven Gallery unveils the distinctly ethereal and imaginative voices of Erika Sanada, Enys Guerrero, Thomas Ascott, and Chris Mars… alongside new group exhibition, “Art of Alchemy”. Each collection promises symbolic depth and visual storytelling drawing us into dreamlike reflection and quiet, personal wonder.
Moving from expressions of internal anxiety and dark folklore-infused paintings, surreal forest landscapes and the ever-guiding pursuit of individualism is brimming. The distinct voice of each artist lets us feel the human experience and creative vision like turning another page of this wonderfully strange story we are all part of.
Erika Sanada | Enys Guerrero | Thomas Ascott | Chris Mars
The Art of Alchemy
Opening Reception: Saturday May 23, 2026 | 6-8pm
Exhibition Dates: May 23 – June 21, 2026 | 6-8pm
Haven Gallery
50 Main St., Northport, NY 11768 | ph. (631) 757-0500
To inquire, please contact Erica 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.
Erika Sanada, Take Shelter
Erika Sanada is ceramic artist and her early inspirations stem from the creatures and characters of dark films. Watching film was a way of escaping from her bitter childhood. She creates hand sculpted hairless ceramic creatures and they are often adorable, but also have bizarre shapes. Her artwork has been shown at a number of art fairs, museums and both domestic and international galleries. She held a solo show at Canton Museum of Art in Ohio. Herr work has been published in Hi-Fructose Magazine, Hey! Magazine and Beautiful Bizarre Magazine.
Artist Statement
My work expresses the constant anxiety I face every day. Since I was little, I always worried about meaningless things and felt a little different from the other kids. Growing up, this habit became bigger, and even now I overthink a lot of things. This makes me feel like I’m an outcast, but I’m also trying to cope with this anxiety. This body of work expresses my alienation and expresses my will to face it.
Enys Guerrero, Somnia Lacrimosa
Artist Statement
Since a very young age, I dedicated most of my time to the visual arts; always influenced by historical moments, such as the Renaissance and the Victorian era. At the same time, fantasy, occultism and tragedy have been another great source of inspiration for me. I graduated at the age of 19 as a Graphic Designer and since then I started my artistic career, focused mainly on traditional techniques, with a great predilection for watercolors and colored pencils.
I am currently working with the U.S. Games Systems, Inc, Anthem Publishing, 78Tarot Publishing, Perna Studios, Braiiinz Publishing; among others. You can also find my work licensed by different companies such as, Thread Geeks Designs, Creative Design Outlet and Diamond Art Club.
Thomas Ascott, New Works
I honestly find the artist’s statement to be an almost impossible feat. I am a visual artist, so, by my estimation, my entire job is to communicate without words; yet, here I sit trying to put words to my images, an exercise I am poorly prepared to undertake.
Inspiration, for me, is just my accumulated experiences, things I’ve seen, heard, touched and felt through my life, jumbled about in my mind and abused by time until they show up on a piece of paper. I would love to point to a sketchbook of ordered images that would tell this story, but, as often as not, the images are spit out on scraps of envelopes near a computer or a convenient napkin ringed with coffee.
Growing up in East Tennessee, I spent a great deal of my childhood wandering through the Smokies, especially the Chimneys Picnic Grounds on the Little Pigeon River. I passed many hours of many summers scrambling over rocks in the middle of streams and exploring caves and trails.
The Smoky Mountains and the Little Pigeon River are the internal background to almost all of my work. No matter what the central element of a piece may be, the natural flora and fauna of the Smokies creeps in, whether in the obvious form of a Smoky Mountain songbird or salamander, or in the less obvious form of rhododendron leaves and lichen-covered boulders.
Chris Mars, De-Amplification
Volume, frequency, tone, aim, agenda, angle, meant well, malicious;
Louder. Loudest – who is the righteous one?
Which is the one I believe, that I follow?
Truth is rarely loudest, shouted, broadcast – it’s something you need to look for, to listen for, to seek out.
Even sought out; even looked for, listened for, chased after, studied and probed, The Truth – despite our innate desire for a single, indisputable, uneroded, unshakable monolith of universal veracity, is most often a fluid thing, more akin to a dancer than a stone: Light on its feet, evolving moving leaping reflexively ,syncing up to each variation of the rhythm of the moment, hour or eon without much thought as to how or why, its lack of self-reflection making it more pleasurable or pretty but no closer by any means to something one can put their weight into without falling over or coming apart. Knowledge and opinion are not the same thing.
Truth is closest without chorus or metronome. Maybe all we’ll every truly know of it is what we set free from inside ourselves.
In creating this body of work, I’ve sought to push over barriers – including my own. I’ve sought to de-amplify.
– Chris Mars, May 2026
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.”
The Art of Alchemy Group Exhibition
An exhibition inviting artists to explore the school of thought and practice of alchemy as it pertains both historically and in modern day.
Exhibiting Artists //
Evaboneva, Gina Matarazzo, Nom Kinnear King, Ignis Garcia, Shinya Takanezawa, Shannon Taylor, Dalo, Claudia Griesbach Martucci, Taegan Treichel, Troy Brooks, Jeff Echevarria, Luke Hillestad, Tom Bagshaw, Calvin Laituri, Melissa Sue Stanley, Larysa Bernhardt, Sui Yumeshima, Tatsufumi Niwa, Hallie Packard, Ren Phu, Cassandra Kim, Lisinka, Annelie Solis, Myriam Black, Lynne Bellchamber, Janice Sung, Julie Song, Arkadiusz Dzielawski, Marc Le Rest, Annie Stegg Gerard, Vivien Kleczek, Valery Vecy Quitard, Genevive Zacconi, Joseph Weinreb, and Scott Radke.
