May 1 – June 1, 2024

Under the Net: When Atmosphere Becomes Form is Victoria Haven’s second exhibition with Planthouse Gallery. Comprised of 12 new works on paper and one site-specific wall drawing, Haven employs a rigorous engagement with line and ink washes in an attempt to reconcile form and atmosphere through abstraction.

Her show title, Under the Net, is borrowed from a favorite Iris Murdoch novel that grapples with the philosophical notion that there is an unbridgeable gap between language and reality that can only be expressed in nonverbal ways. Haven’s new drawings, called The Dialogics operate as perceptual spaces that invite the viewer to bridge that gap.

For nearly three decades, Victoria Haven’s practice has revolved around drawing, which she has explored through works on paper as well as site-specific interventions on the walls of studios, museums, and galleries. This recent body of work expands into new territory as the angular geometries of past work are re-considered through a process of bending, twisting, and shaping inky lines to create these divergent, enigmatic forms. 

View works in the exhibition here.

Victoria Haven (lives and works in Seattle, WA) received a BFA in Painting from the University of Washington; Seattle WA and an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College/University of London, England.

Previous exhibitions include Solid Objects at Walker Art Center; Minneapolis, MN; Line at Lisson Gallery, London; Overland at Planthouse Gallery, NY; Abstract Drawing at Drawing Room, London; Subtitles at PDX Contemporary Art and Portland Art Museum, Portland; They All Stop Walking at Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle; Proposed Land Use Action at Seattle Art Museum, Blue Sun for Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle; Selections at the Drawing Center, NY; and Drawing Space at Suyama Space, Seattle.

Haven is the recipient of several awards and residencies including MacDowell Colony, NH, Mass MoCA, Rauschenberg Residency-Captiva FL, Pollock Krasner Fellowship, The Neddy Award; Art Matters Grant and a Betty Bowen award from the Seattle Art Museum. Selected collections include Seattle Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Gates Foundation and Portland Art Museum.

She has been a visiting artist/lecturer at Cal-State Fullerton, Cornish College of the Arts; Illinois State University, Seattle University and the University of Washington. She is represented by PDX Contemporary Art, Portland OR.