Black Satin Wrought Iron

Juvana Soliven

April 2 – May 14, 2022

Opening
Saturday April 2, 6–8pm

Aupuni Space is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Juvana Soliven. 

Juvana’s practice is an active investment in craft processes – metal-smithing, fibers, beading – the tedium of which reflects on how even a collection of many small pieces / tasks / actions may still fail at amounting to the whole. Metals that are hard are brittle, they hold a honed edge but snap easily due to their inability to flex, adapt. In using heat, they have the potential to become soft and malleable, and only in that state can be wrought. The assumed power dynamics between hard and soft are mirrored in the relationship between metal, fiber, and glass beads in these works – assumed rigidity, strength and fragility.

statement from the artist:
I had a vision I was in a pitch black room. I couldn’t see the edges, how far those walls had expanded. The blackness was so dense. A column of blindingly bright light shone on me and I still couldn’t see where the walls were, if there were any at all. I woke up crying.

Why are you afraid of the dark? It’s space that holds the infinite unknown possibilities for terror, love, ruin, success, sadness, joy. It could hold you like an embrace or a net, inspiring or paralyzing. Shut your eyes or adjust them to start to see the points of light that guide you as you navigate it.



















Juvana Soliven is a visual artist and educator from Honolulu, Hawai'i. She holds an MFA in Metalsmithing from Cranbrook Academy of Art, a BFA in Sculpture from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, and studied Art Restoration and Conservation at Lorenzo de’ Medici International School in Florence, Italy. Soliven is a Lecturer in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Fine Arts at Chaminade University of Honolulu. Her work is in the collections of Cranbrook Art Museum, Honolulu Museum of Art, Hawai'i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, as well as in private collections. Soliven has exhibited nationally and internationally, including the Netherlands, Germany, and Iceland.