Valerie Huhn
Fingerprint Pinned Cluster. Detail from North Star Installation.
Size variable. 2023
We are Each Other's Magnitude
Arts Council of Princeton
Artist In Residence Foyer Installation
On view to the public 6 April- 15 June 2024
102 Witherspoon Street
Princeton, NJ 08542
Valerie Huhn’s approach to her art practice includes large-scale works which reflect the artist’s concern with social justice for herself and others for whom it remains elusive. Her work reflects on identity – personal, cultural and collective - while introducing themes of freedom, imprisonment, neurodiversity and acts of defiance in the presence of power. Huhn’s mixed media artworks range from sculpture to installation and works on paper, frequently incorporating repurposed or unorthodox materials such as metal fencing, books and furniture. She often reconstitutes unusual materials into vignettes that introduce new narratives while evoking the cultural residue of the materials to achieve overlapping meanings. Working in a repetitive fashion, she meticulously applies paint with her fingertips in sweeping arrangements of lines and shapes, or affixes pins and sequins to found objects to fully cover the surfaces. The result is a dizzying array of patterns and reflections that mediate the difficult knowledge addressed while concomitantly calling attention to the issues at stake.
Jeanne Brasile, Artist / Curator