Lavinia van Heuvelen

Lavinia van Heuvelen, an emerging jeweller, was born and raised in Bowmanville, ON and decided to move to Iqaluit after she graduated high school. She studied Jewellery and Metalwork at Nunavut Arctic College, graduating four years ago to pursue working full time as a Jeweller. In 2011 she began Lavinia Van Heuvelen's Jewellery.

Van Heuvelen has worked with a lot of mediums over the years including painting, drawing, printmaking and sewing as well as her main jewellery practice with much of her work primarily made with sterling silver and natural materials.  She believes jewellery has stayed her main medium due to her love of experimenting with new techniques and projects. Previously working out of Aayuraa Studios in Iqaluit van Heuvelen has been able to learn and grow as an artist from working around her mentors, peers and studio mates. Working with natural materials gifted or purchased from local hunters van Heuvelen is inspired by the north and what is around her. Much of her jewellery directly references traditional Inuit themes and imagery, which are tied together with silver and materials from the land.

Though early on in her career van Heuvelen has already won many awards for her work and has travelled around Canada and to London, England exhibiting and selling her pieces. Van Heuvelen’s work can be purchased at galleries across the country including the Vancouver Inuit Art Gallery, the Winnipeg Art Gallery and L.A. Pai, Ottawa, ON to name a few.