Anne Havens / Sue Havens

Opening Reception: First Friday, March 6

"Anne Havens / Sue Havens" brings together two distinct and accomplished artistic practices at Rochester Contemporary Art Center. Featuring a selection of works drawn from different periods and media, the exhibition honors each artist’s work on its own terms while placing them in thoughtful proximity for the first time at RoCo.

Anne Havens, a Rochester-based multidisciplinary artist, presents work shaped by decades of intuitive, material-driven exploration. Working fluidly across sculpture, printmaking, drawing, ceramics, photography, and artist’s books, Havens’s practice reflects a sustained curiosity about process, metaphor, and the quiet poetry of objects. Her work often balances playfulness and introspection, inviting viewers into rich encounters where lived experiences and personal metaphors open onto shared human concerns.

Art making is my way of dealing with life…letting me act out, exorcise, focus, resist disintegration and, most of all, be surprised. -Anne Havens

Sue Havens, based in Florida, presents work from a practice rooted in painting and expanded across sculpture, printmaking, and ceramics. Her work is marked by a playful irreverence toward objects and a rigorous engagement with form, surface, and color, balancing structure with chance and physical process. Exhibited widely in national and international contexts, Havens’s practice reflects conceptual precision alongside a sustained commitment to material experimentation across disciplines.

I follow what the object is asking me to do. -Sue Havens

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Anne Havens (born 1941 in Los Angeles, California) is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Rochester, New York. She earned a BA from Stanford University in 1963, where she studied history and foreign languages. She has pursued additional study at Académie Julian in Paris, Rochester Institute of Technology, and the Memorial Art Gallery’s Creative Workshop, though she describes her work is largely self-directed and intuitive. Havens works across a wide array of media, including sculpture, print making, drawing, ceramics, photography, video and artist’s books. Much of her art is inspired by an exploration of materials, ideas, and the creative process itself. Her practice often reflects a playful curiosity and an engagement with both formal and conceptual concerns. Anne’s work weaves metaphor, found objects and recurring motifs into a visual language that speaks to both intimate experience and shared human concerns, moving fluently between whimsy and depth, with occasional references to history and literature appearing throughout. Anne Haven’s work has been featured in a range of group exhibitions including: 4th Rochester Biennial, Memorial Art Gallery (2010), The Upstate Invitational, Rochester Contemporary Art Center (2007), Tower Fine Arts Gallery, State University of New York at Brockport (1998),Schweinfurth Art Center (2007), Nan Miller Gallery (1997). Solo exhibitions include: Dyer Art Center, National Technical Institute of the Deaf (2005). Mercer Gallery, Monroe Community College, Rochester (1999), Houghton House Gallery at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY, (1997) Oxford Gallery (1995) among others. annehavens.com

Sue Havens (born 1972 in Rochester, New York) is an artist based in New York and Tampa. Havens received her BFA in Art from The Cooper Union for The Advancement of Science and Art in 1995, and her MFA in painting from The Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College in 2003. Havens is a 2008 Fellowship recipient in Painting from The New York Foundation for the Arts and a recipient of the 2017 McKnight Junior Faculty Development Fellowship. She is currently an assistant Professor of Art at The University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. Havens has exhibited internationally and nationally in venues such as The Knockdown Center in New York, Galerie Nord in Berlin, The Museum of Drawings in Laholm, Sweden, Regina Rex, Jeff Bailey, PS 122, Postmasters, Frederich Petzel, Art in General, Momenta Art, Sara Meltzer, OK Harris, Pierogi, The Tampa Museum of Art, The Sarasota Art Museum, and Mindy Solomon in Miami among many others. Havens authored, designed and illustrated the book Make Your Own Toys (2010). Her work was featured in Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine, New American Painting Magazine, the Korean International Ceramic Biennale. She recently discussed her work at the National Ceramics Education Council and has a solo exhibition at The Marjorie Barrick Museum at UNLV. @shavens88

CELEBRATING ANNE HAVENS

In Rochester’s art community, Havens is recognized both for her creative output, and her role is a supporter of other artists, especially young and emerging artists. For many years, Anne welcomed into her shared studio, numerous artists to collaborate and create a vital and generous shared space within Anderson Alley Arts Building. The artist has had a career long engagement with printmaking through her own work, exploring all different print media in participation with the Rochester Print Club. She directed the Anne Havens Gallery from 1984 to 1988, beginning with the work of her father in law Jim Havens and his contemporaries, and evolving into a collection that included folk art and an eclectic array of fine art and objects. Anne’s involvement at Rochester Contemporary Art Center has been decades long including: exhibiting in numerous group projects and Members Exhibitions; volunteering and helping to design and plan the first 6 x 6 exhibition; sponsoring the annual Bill Havens Award, in memory of her late son. Along with her late husband, Stewart Davis, they donated countless artworks by local and national artists, prompting RoCo to establish the Davis-Havens fundraising sales gallery.

RoCo is honored to present these two artists together, offering audiences the opportunity to experience the range, depth, and individuality of their respective bodies of work within a single exhibition space. This exhibition is presented alongside the exhibition "Anne Havens: Echoes and Variations" at MCC’s Mercer Gallery

As part of this exhibition we are collecting thoughts of appreciation and gratitude for Anne and her artwork. If you'd like to share your thoughts, please visit: https://form.jotform.com/260145459655059