S T A T E M E N T

My work primarily arises as a response to something I consider beautiful, a question to be considered, an investigation into a ‘just noticed’ element that compels me to look harder, think deeper, and step inside: a call and response. The process becomes transformative. My life has turned at these times. A disintegrating house in the woods, a barn of great age in a field, the beauty bestowed by degraded chemistry in the darkroom, seeing - with intention, my fellow riders on the subway, the extraordinary beauty and form of flowers past their prime, and the broken planes on a water’s surface. And . . . always the image.

I have reverence for used, worn, broken things — houses, people, ruins. And I cherish the gift of mistakes which are often an opening into what I couldn’t have foreseen or anticipated.

Regarding photography itself, I am fascinated by its protean nature: the ability to be both a handmade object and the opposing notion of infinite reproduction, the mechanically photographic versus the personal line, and the dialectic between the rational and the irrational. 

A B O U T

Cheryl Van Hooven is an American visual artist and photographer who has long been driven by three powerful elements: the essence of beauty, the impact of time, and the power of transformation.

Her creative practice is centered on exploring these themes through a broad range of photo-based works including cameraless light drawings, light boxes, assemblage constructions, diptychs and triptychs, artist’s books, analog and digital, black & white and color photography, the use of degraded chemistry and toning, and chromas, her own darkroom invention: investigations of pure color created with light, photo paper and chemicals.

Throughout a career of more than four decades, Van Hooven has aimed to create compelling work that shares her explorations and passions with others.

B I O

Cheryl Van Hooven’s work has been exhibited at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Albright-Knox Museum, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Southern Allegheny Museum of Art, (PA), Velan Arte Contemporanea, Torino, Italy, HERE Arts Center, NYC, LaMama LaGalleria, NYC, Islip Art Museum, Granary Books Gallery, NYC, The Tremaine Gallery at the Hotchkiss School, Lakeville, CT, University of California at San Diego, Anderson Center for the Arts, Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY, Joseph Bellows Gallery, La Jolla, CA, DePaul University, Chicago, Bayley Art Museum, Charlottesville, among others.

Van Hooven’s photographs have been published in Interview Magazine, Details Magazine, New York Magazine, Vogue Italia, Atlanta Magazine, Avenue Magazine, Puchong Folios, Imagery: Art for Wine, and by Macmillan, Inc.

Cheryl Van Hooven’s work is in private and public collections including the Brooklyn Museum, the New York Public Library, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints & Photographs, Ballard Spahr, Philadelphia, Imagery Estate Winery Permanent Collection at Sonoma State University, Banana Republic, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Princeton, Morrison & Foerster, NY, Pfizer, Inc, NY, Radian Guaranty, London, Morrison & Foerster, NY, KfW IPEX-Bank, NY, and others.

S E L E C T E D C O M M I S S I O N S

Aldrich Museum, Polaroids for the Aldrich
Imagery Estate Winery, Benzinger Family, Sonoma
KfW Ipex-Bank, New York
HERE Arts Center, NYC, Artful Post, Women in Power
Private: Venice Waves, triptych

E D U C A T I O N

University of Georgia, BA, Journalism
2 years study towards PhD, Emory University Graduate School of Sociology
(full fellowship & stipend)

Multiple overseas backpacking trips including one year in SE Asia, Nepal, Australia and NZ
I believe that travel and on-the-ground experience with different cultures and people are significant educational opportunities.

Studio work for Irving Penn, retouching platinum-palladium prints for exhibition

Cheryl Van Hooven lives in New York City.