Valerie Huhn: The Wound Is The Place Where The Light Enters You
Valerie Huhn’s artwork in The Wound Is The Place Where The Light Enters You, whose title is
borrowed from the poet Rumi, is a combination of some of her earliest pieces created
using the fingerprint as an artistic mark and some of the latest works to leave the studio.
“Fingerprint Mural May-June 2007,” the first large-scale work she created with her
fingerprints, presents the fingerprint as an abstract image and an investigation of a
symbol of identity. It also honors and memorializes her mother, whose life was nearing
its end at the time.
Most of the other work in the show features a pinned-fingerprint technique that she uses to
create and adorn. She envisions these pins as markers of identity or characteristics we pin
on others and ourselves. “I create fingerprints in panoply of colors on transparent film;
these marks of identification vary in weight or heaviness of the imprint. Some I leave as
they are, and others I embellish with glitter. I use a hole punch to carve circles out of the
many-colored prints and then spear them with pins, four at a time.”
In puncturing the discs, she breaks the fingerprint down even further, reflecting how much or little data a
fingerprint conveys and how little we know about ourselves and others. The quartet of
nucleotides that comprise DNA molecules—biochemical markers of identity—inspired
the groupings of four disks on each pin.
“Pinned-Fingerprint Ladder” consists of threads of these pins twisted and twirled around
the rungs and side rails of a ladder Valerie constructed from prison industrial flatware. This is
not just a reference to the double-helix of DNA. It specifically recalls my escape from a
long-term psychiatric facility in Philadelphia—she ran down a flight of marble stairs into a
getaway car. “I fled Pennsylvania by crossing the Delaware River from New Hope into
New Jersey. I lived for a year in Hunterdon County before moving to NYC to pursue an
art education.”
The show largely revolves around banned books, particularly those written by
marginalized authors—the very books Valerie most related to and learned from.
“Reading books is how I learned about the world. For the first six years of my life, I was
considered legally blind and struggled to see anything clearly, but I could hold a book
close to my face and read it— that’s what I did to understand the world that was so vast
and blurry.”
“I have reverence beyond words for books and reading. I slowly lost the ability to read
after sustaining a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) from a car accident when I was in my
teens. Life got quite dark and much smaller. During the decades my brain injury went
undiagnosed, its symptoms were treated as those of a psychiatric disorder. I was
hospitalized for years before the damage was found and properly treated.”
“I struggled with reading and comprehension throughout my undergrad and graduate
programs. In late 2024, I saw a neurologist who diagnosed the injury, identifying the
area of the brain that had been injured, and placed me on a new treatment protocol in
2025. For the first time in years, I could read and comprehend what I was reading.”
The book works in this show are from the period when Valerie regained the ability to read
with ease. She chose these banned writings because of her esteem for the authors and the
humanity they convey in their writing, but also to highlight the truth that Black Americans
and other marginalized groups were denied the right to read and write and severely
penalized for the act of acquiring knowledge.
“Those with wealth and power maintained their wealth and power in part by depriving equal rights to people they considered less worthy. The floating swings cradling censored books is based on a facsimile of 1980’s New York City swing set underscores the school to prison pipeline that marginalized
students were forced to navigate.”
“The show is an honoring of the communities and cultures that embraced me after
returning to the world from my time spent in several psychiatric institutions.”
Artist Bio:
Valerie Huhn works in a variety of media from drawing and video to mixed-media, sculpture,
and site-specific installation. Her work has been shown throughout the United States and
internationally. She has received numerous awards for her work. Residencies include time in
Long Beach Island, NJ, Aspen, CO, chashama in New York City Aferro Studios in Newark, NJ
and most recently Artist in Residence at Arts Council of Princeton, NJ. Her work is included in
the former Bell Telephone Building in Newark, The Fortune Society, and private collections. In
2022, she received a New Jersey Council of the Arts finalist and a fellowship in 2025 She
received a CERF Grant in 2025. Valerie holds degrees in an AAS in graphic design, photography
and fine arts from Parsons, New School and a BFA and MFA San Francisco Art Institute. Valerie
lives and works in Flemington, NJ. Her work is represented by Ivy Brown Gallery.