String T H E O R Y
• JULIA COUZENS AND JULIA HAFT-CANDELL • J U L Y
9
–
A U G U S T
2 0 ,
2 0 1 1 • HUNTINGTON BEACH ART CENTER • HUNTINGTON BEACH CALIFORNIA
J U LY 9 – AU G U S T 2 0 , 2 0 1 1
Director’s Statement.........................................................................4
Kate G. Hoffman
Curator’s Statement .........................................................................5
Darlene D. DeAngelo
Julia Couzens and Julia Haft-Candell: All in the Lines ....................6-8
Christopher Miles
Julia Couzens
Artist’s Statement ...........................................................................11
Works from 2009-2011 .............................................................12-20
Checklist ........................................................................................21
Resume ....................................................................................22-23
Julia Haft-Candell
Artist’s Statement ...........................................................................27
Works from 2011 ......................................................................28-39
Checklist ........................................................................................40
Resume .........................................................................................41
Credits ...........................................................................................42
Acknowledgements ........................................................................43
Mission Statement..........................................................................44
The Huntington Beach Art Center is pleased to present String
Theory, an exhibition of new works by Julia Couzens and Julia HaftCandell, two artists who explore the use of line from unique
perspectives. Julia Couzens develops sculptural works using yarns,
strings and other fibers to present expressions of line that have
evolved from her depth of experience in drawing. Julia HaftCandell explores the interconnectedness of all things by creating
sculptures comprised of smaller components connecting to make
larger forms. Both artists create expressions of energy that unravel,
rebuild and reflect the phenomena of life.
We are pleased to have the opportunity to present this original
exhibition. With grateful acknowledgement to Curator Darlene
DeAngelo and the Art Center staff for their creativity and diligence
in the preparation of the exhibition, we would also like to thank
the Allied Arts Board, the City of Huntington Beach and the
Huntington Beach Art Center Foundation for their ongoing support
of the arts in Huntington Beach.
— Kate G. Hoffman, Executive Director
Huntington Beach Art Center
More than seven years ago, I was introduced to the art work of Julia Couzens. And, only seven short
months ago, I visited the studio of Julia Haft-Candell. These two artists intersect each other in their
devotion to line, systems, and manipulation of ordinary materials and fibers.
String Theory connects Couzens and Haft-Candell in their obsessive formations from drawings to
sculptural wall, floor, and suspended works. Both artists are concerned with the nature and order of
things that make up our world, the sense of a linear rhythm, without a beginning or an end. This visual
mapping or archeological system is then re-organized in distinctly different, but related bodies of work.
Each sees new possibilities within their chosen materials while developing a visually intense process to
create a rhythmic energy.
Julia Couzens’ drawings are comprised of bits and pieces of cut tape and paper. Her chosen method of
drawing is with scissors and a matte knife. Couzens says that this process has allowed her to play, to
weave and spin her stories, building on each line as if it were a visual haiku. In this building up of line
upon line, the final work becomes a reduction of sorts, a bare minimum that has an energy swirling
within each work. The obvious extension and building has led her to the sculptural forms. Using basic
materials of cast off yarns, string, twine and rope, she shrinks and unravels each line in the eventual
build-up of forms that act as satellites floating in space.
Julia Haft-Candell’s works start from clay. Building with this clay structure allows a systematic approach
for each additional material to be added as if a factory of workers were employed. But, the factory
contains only one obsessed worker. Forced with deadlines, a futile attempt of stitching thrift store silk
over and over again on top of the metal, wire, found objects and ceramic materials lends its weighty
support depending on each composition. The finished works make the most of this silky sheen-like skin
to complete their vibrant appearance.
Beyond the obvious beauty and natural mystery of the forms that surround the works of Julia Couzens
and Julia Haft-Candell – the repetition they utilize reminds us there is no choice, only endless time
accompanied by line after line.
I would like to thank the artists for sharing their process with me, their assistants for help in the installation
of String Theory, Christopher Miles for his insightful essay, and the staff of the Huntington Beach Art
Center.
— Darlene D. DeAngelo, Curator of Exhibitions
Huntington Beach Art Center
The works of Julia Couzens and Julia HaftCandell draw one into a consideration of
the relationship between line and form
that is as familiar in the history of art as it
is in our common experience of the
natural and industrialized worlds.
In early nineteenth-century France, debate waged within
the academy between the Poussinistes and Rubenistes
(factions named for their idols Poussin and Rubens, but
in fact most represented respectively by Jean-AugusteDominique Ingres and Eugène Delacroix). The factions
argued as to whether it was line or color that held more
sway in the definition of form in a two-dimensional
painting, with the Poussinistes insisting on line’s capacity
for specific articulation—for delineation—and the
Rubenistes insisting on the capacity of color to flesh out
palpable form. The debate was an echo of the
opposition, posed by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the
Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects
between the sixteenth-century schools of Tuscany and
Venice, and the associated concepts of disegno and
colore. Though he predated these schools, the
Florentine artist Paolo Uccello, whose preoccupation
with linear perspective was celebrated by Vasari as some
kind of insomniac obsession, produced works that
epitomized the potential for using line alone in a twodimensional drawing to articulate the complex volume
of a three-dimensional form. Uccello’s Perspective
Study of a Chalice (circa. 1450) prefigures the
“wireframe” digital renderings of objects seemingly
wrapped form-fitting grids that now are commonplace
in both industrial applications and popular culture. One
need look no further than the common historical
characterizations of
(reasoned
Poussin
and
classicist)
(Baroque
Rubens
sensualist), or of
Ingres (neoclassicist,
proclaimed
self
“conservator of good
and
doctrine”)
(bold
Delacroix
romantic), or of the
Tuscan and Venetian
schools, to see how
their oppositions have
been analogous to, Uccello, Perspective Study of a
Chalice (circa. 1450)
and not unconnected
to, old separations between concepts of mind and body,
word and flesh, intellectual and sensual. Drawing and
line would seem to win some preferred status in such
oppositions, a position of almost pious superiority, and
yet they also seem to become obliged toward some
sense of propriety and reason while color and expression
get to have all the fun.
As one moves toward the modernist epoch, however,
line becomes not only the tool of reasoned delineation
in illusionistic representation, but just as likely the
conduit of emotion, the mark of expression, the vehicle
of color, the stripe of abstraction. Line may be ordered
and precise, or may be evocative and raw. And as one
moves from two-dimensional representation, no matter
how illusionistic or non-objective, and into the three
dimensions of sculptural form, line becomes literal and
present and structural. Line becomes form—solidified
drawing in space—in work by artists as varied as
Alexander Rodchenko, Laszlo Maholy-Nagy, José de
Rivera, Mary Viera, Fred Sandback, and Nancy Graves.
It becomes the familiar concept of “linear form”
explored in 3D design courses at art schools, and in
design manuals such as the classic mid-century text The
Design Continuum by Stewart Kranz and Robert Fisher.
And as we move from the realm of art and architecture
into categories of crafts, handicrafts, and utilitarian
objects, line becomes form in objects ranging from
baskets and nets to doilies and wire-mesh fencing. In
the Industrial and Post-Industrial ages, line as form, or
linear form, becomes familiar in structures as familiar
as train trestles, oil derricks, suspension bridges, the
Eiffel Tower, and in the unsheathed skeletal framing of
buildings.
It is at the intersection of such now familiar structural
and infrastructural and constructions, and their kin to
be found in crafts, decorative arts, and utilitarian
objects, as well as in modern and postmodern sculpture,
that the works of both Julia Couzens and Julia HaftCandell take shape. Each artist’s practice is intensely
involved in the conversion of line into form, but very
much unlike the more purity-seeking tendencies of both
classicists who saw line as the tool of reasoned order,
and many a modernist who saw line as a path to some
kind of geometrically abstract perfection, both Couzens
and Haft-Candell seem to see line as the tool of
expressive character, and it is a character that can be
idiosyncratic, humorous, vulnerable, soulful, and even
unapologetically flawed. This may be said as much of
their drawings and works on paper as it may be said of
their sculptures, as the two-dimensional works of each
artist, which might appear at first to be simply twodimensional linear abstractions, seem more accurately
understood as representations—sometimes more
illusionistic, sometimes more diagrammatic—of threedimensional linear forms—drawings on paper of
drawings in space, lines of graphite or ink representing
lines of string or wood or clay.
Seemingly imprecise in some ways, and clearly driven
by intuition, the works of Couzens and Haft-Candell are
nonetheless determined and deliberate. For all their
informality, they possess a certain formal clarity, and a
knowingness about what they are, what they aren’t,
what they resemble, and what they suggest. They take
line beyond a consideration of what it can delineate and
describe, and into a consideration of what it can be and
what it can evoke. This is the strength of both artists’
practices—their willingness to see line materialized and
employed toward ends beyond some kind of delineating
purity, and instead as something complexly and
promiscuously impure—something to muck around
with, something interesting in itself as much as in what
it might articulate.
The works of Couzens and Haft-Candell undoubtedly
deal heavily in structure, and reference structure. In
them one sees the lines of conduits and struts and
trusses and networks, and they seem to suggest an
affiliation with, and perhaps even an aspiration towards
real architecture and infrastructure, and in as much they
seem to find artistic kinship in the clean geometry of
Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International,
or in the diagrammatic abstractions of the painter Peter
Halley, whose compositions are as precise and cool as
an organizational flowchart. And in what one might call
their modest engineering and structural successes, they
find kin among the towers that hold aloft high-voltage
wires or the trusses that tie together the International
Space Station. But the works of both artists are cobbled
together and imprecise, with what structural integrity
they attain seeming less the product of careful planning
and calculation of proportional relationships and
material properties than of trial-and-error experience and
on-the-fly empiricism. Their materials are mismatched, their
unions, grafts, and
connections inconsistent
and varying between
barely sufficient and
overwrought. They stem
more from the mindset of
the bricoleur than that of
the structural engineer,
more from that of the
gestural expressionist
than that of the
constructivist or the
hardedge abstractionist.
For
all
the
odd
engineering that does
indeed go into them,
Couzens’ and Haft- Vladimir Tatlin, Monument to the
Candell’s works would Third International (circa. 1919)
be more at home among the Art Brut inspired work of Jean Dubuffet or the cultivatedly clumsy
and sophisticatedly goofy formalism of Franz West.
There is a certain combination of grace and ragtagness that defines the practice of both artists.
The assorted yarns, twines, and strings that conspire to form a kind of tangled skin or web across
the Couzens’ forms, and that are analogous to what might be cables or ropes in more structurally
demanding engineering feats, are here frayed and of inconsistent sizes and strengths, and on the
occasion when Couzens incorporates more sturdy strands into her wrapping and weavings—say
a bit of climbing or packing rope—these are always joined with lesser strings and yarns, making
weakest-link scenarios a hallmark of the work. Interlaced and woven together with bits of cast-off
fabric, knitting, and crocheting, they never congeal, and don’t even try to conceal that they are
in essence three-dimensional patchworks—mendings upon mendings. Meanwhile, the rigid
elements of Haft-Candell’s works, comprising assorted types of clay formed into rough coils and
fired, joined with metal rods and sticks, are so spindly and often bowed and bent as to suggest
the chassis of a skyscraper come down with a case of rickets. The unions of these rigid elements
often are of a soft-tissue nature, covered in sutured fabric, and the ceramic components are
plagued with breaks that the artist has repaired. These repairs are frequently decorated in a
manner that calls to mind both the Japanese kintsugi or “golden joinery” tradition (employed as
well by the contemporary British ceramic artist Andrew Lord) of honoring the repair by converting
it into an aesthetic feature rather than attempting to camouflage it, and the popular pastime of
doodling on the casts of friends with recently set broken bones. In these works, line less delineates
than simulates bodily conditions. Line fleshes out; line becomes flesh.
It is in their capacity to call to mind space stations and skyscrapers, networks and feats of
infrastructure, as well as to evoke a sense of scavenged subsistence and bodily vulnerability that
the works of Couzens and Haft-Candell achieve their poignance. One becomes aware that these
works—which pull off what they do in large part by simply holding together once assembled, by
standing up and continuing to defy gravity, by maintaining necessary balance and tension, by
staying connected, by not falling apart—share the same base aspirations as skyscrapers and space
stations. At base, they are aspirational works, and are born of an aspirational mindset. But they
also suggest a different kind of aspiration, and perhaps one that is less about engineering triumph
than about survival, existence, and living—the aspiration to get out of bed, to live another day, to
keep a body together even as it ages and breaks, to prop it up when needed, to stand. Looking
at them, one can find oneself feeling weak in the knees; one can find the aches from that old
injury coming back, one can sense that part of one’s body that broke and got repaired somewhere
along the way, but doesn’t work quite like it used to. And yet for all that sense of frailty and
vulnerability, they also have a vibrance, and a stirring pathos, and they manage more often to
make one smile over the possibility that a bunch of yarn or clay or sticks—a bunch of cheap
materials—with a lot of flaws and funny looks, goofy manners and odd quirks, clear fragility,
obvious wear and tear, and surprising determination, might turn out to be something someone
can relate to with gravitas, wonder, humor, and romance.
Christopher Miles
Summer 2011
Julia Couzens
French, with a twist, (detail)
My work comes from a drawing practice over 40 years in the making. The decisions and impulses
found in drawing are the infrastructure that informs my objects, paintings, and constructions. For
the last several years my work has been concerned with cultural gestures and the consequences of
line. Choosing among the piles of cast-off knitting, the selections from Dollar Store inventories, and
the snippets of tatting and lace growing in the studio, traditional domestic crafts are combined with
an aggressive impulse to rephrase, cancel, and blur. I use the association between what is intensely
organized and pre-determined and what is intensely unraveled and “unmade” to form new entities
and questions. The work becomes a sort of ad hoc collaboration between an unknown worker,
possibly no longer living, and me.
Commonplace tasks of wrapping and weaving become stretched and shrunken linear entanglements
of string, yarn, rope, threads, and wire. Corners, edges, planes, and points are not plotted, rather
diverse gestural and cognitive grafts expose my elemental, intuitive play.
Concentrations of twine and nests of wool become bundled embodiments of energy. Tiny sections of
sliced tape make points, dashes, and curls from which linear rhythms and sequences emerge to
telegraph currents of graphic energy. A personal Morse code suggesting frayed tapestry, webs, nests,
and fingerprints. The flotsam, jetsam, and phenomena of life. And the painstaking velocity of the
methods enables me to stop time in the micro moment, affording abiding pleasure in the minute by
minute connection of the method to my experiential self. But the thickets, nets, and veiny whorls that
define my work are not predicated on overarching ideological designs. Their meaning is
rhizomorphous: underground fragments of meaning spreading roots and sending shoots of possibilities
to the surface, driven by the unraveling boogie-woogie and patois of line.
Julia Couzens
Fading fast, but slowly …, 2011
plastic
dimensions vary
Courtesy of the artist
Fading fast, but slowly …, (details)
Julia Couzens
Heavy Sacrifice, 2011
fabric, plastic, rope, wire and yarn
32 x 25 x 21 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Heavy Sacrifice, (details)
Julia Couzens
Rootball, 2009
plastic, rope, wire and yarn
30 x 30 x 17 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Rootball, (details)
Julia Couzens
Sweet, 2011
fabric, plastic, rope, wire and yarn
34 x 28 x 23 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Sweet, (details)
Julia Couzens
Second Nature, 2009-2011
thread, wire and yarn
29 x 38 x 26 inches
Courtesy of the artist
All art courtesy of the artist, unless otherwise noted.
Fading fast, but slowly …, 2011
plastic
dimensions vary
Filings IX, 2010
tape on vellum
22 x 17 inches
Filings I, 2009
tape on vellum
12 x 9 inches – each panel
12 x 18 ½ inches – diptych
Filings X, 2009
tape on vellum
12 x 9 inches – each panel
12 x 28 inches – triptych
Collection of Jerald Silva
Filings II, 2009
tape on vellum
12 x 9 inches
Filings III, 2009
tape on vellum
24 x 19 inches
Filings IV, 2009
tape on vellum
19 x 24 inches
Filings V, 2009
tape on vellum
12 x 9 inches
Filings VI, 2008
tape on vellum
12 x 9 inches
Filings VII, 2009
tape on vellum
9 x 12 inches
Filings VIII, 2009
tape on vellum
12 x 9 inches
French, with a twist, 2009
rope, thread, wire and yarn
33 x 28 x 15 inches
Heavy Sacrifice, 2011
fabric, plastic, rope, wire and yarn
32 x 25 x 21 inches
Pattern Recognition, 2009
ink, paper and pencil on paper
12 x 9 inches, each panel – nine panel installation
Collection of Jay-Allen Eisen Law Corporation
Rootball, 2009
plastic, rope, wire and yarn
30 x 30 x 17 inches
Second Nature, 2009-2011
thread, wire and yarn
29 x 38 x 26 inches
Sweet, 2011
fabric, plastic, rope, wire and yarn
34 x 28 x 23 inches
Born
Auburn, California
Resides Merritt Island, Clarksburg, California
2009
Educati on
1990
M.F.A., University of California-Davis, Davis,
California
Solo and Tw o-Pe rson Exhibitions
2011
2010
2009
2005
2003
2000
1999
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
1987
String Theory, Huntington Beach Art Center,
Huntington Beach, California
All Taped Up, INSITE, San Francisco, California
Maidment, University Art Gallery, California State
University-Stanislaus, Turlock, California
Strange Fascination, Center for Contemporary Art,
Sacramento, California
Vagrant Fancies, Davis Art Center, Davis, California
Net Work, Claremont Graduate School, Claremont,
California
34 Collaborations: Julia Couzens and Joan Moment,
California Arts Council, Department of Justice,
Sacramento, California
Julia Couzens: Drawings, Paintings, Objects: 19901999, Richard L. Nelson Gallery and the Fine Arts
Collection, University of California-Davis, Davis,
California
Julia Couzens: Survey of Work from 1990-1998,
Sonoma Museum of Visual Art, Santa Rosa, California
Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica, California
gross exaggeration: the work of julia couzens and
sarah whipple, City Gallery at Chastain, Atlanta,
Georgia
Robert Else Gallery, California State UniversitySacramento, Sacramento, California
Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica, California
Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica, California
Michael Himovitz Gallery, Sacramento, California
Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica, California
Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery, University of Nevada,
Las Vegas
Sheppard Fine Art Gallery, University of NevadaReno, Reno, Nevada
Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica, California
Memorial Union Gallery, University of CaliforniaDavis, Davis, California
Michael Himovitz Gallery, Sacramento, California
Jeremy Stone Gallery, San Francisco, California
Selected Gr oup Exhibiti ons
2011
21st Century Painting, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis,
California
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
Hauntology, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film
Archive, Berkeley, California
Gift Shop, Another Year in L.A., Los Angeles,
California
Birdhouse, Sacramento City College, Sacramento,
California
Homecoming, Sacramento City College, Sacramento,
California
Geo Morph, Pence Gallery, Davis, California
1020: An Exhibition Honoring the Michael Himovitz
Gallery, Temporary Contemporary, Sacramento,
California
Contemporary Drawings and Works on Paper, Center
for Contemporary Art, Sacramento, California
Flatlanders 2: A Regional Biennial Exhibition, The
Richard L. Nelson Gallery, University of CaliforniaDavis, Davis, California
Beyond A Gift of Time, Roswell Museum of Art,
Roswell, New Mexico
The Joanne and William Rees Collection, New Britain
Museum of Art, New Britain, Connecticut
Art Store, Another Year in L.A., Los Angeles,
California
Art Tomorrow: Western Biennale of Art, John
Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, California
The L.A Years, Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa
Monica, California
The Pilot Hill Collection of Contemporary Art, Crocker
Art Museum, Sacramento, California. Travels to
Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio;
Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas
Out of True, University Art Museum, University of
California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California
Holding the Line/Contemporary Drawing Survey,
Sheppard Fine Art Gallery, University of NevadaReno, Reno, Nevada
Blemish, Memphis College of Art, Memphis,
Tennessee
Altares Nuevos: Contemporary Northern California
Artists, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California
Girl Talk, Encina Art Gallery, Sacramento, California
Pierogi 2000 FlatFiles, Yerba Buena Center for the
Arts, San Francisco, California
Haulin’ Ass: Pierogi in L.A., POST, Los Angeles,
California
Selected Recent Acquisitions, Richard L. Nelson
Gallery and Fine Art Collection, University of
California-Davis, Davis, California
Recent Acquisitions, Crocker Art Museum,
Sacramento, California
Push Push, Reynolds Gallery, University of the Pacific,
Stockton, California
Simply Drawing, Artists Contemporary Gallery, Sacramento,
California
BioArt, North American Interdisciplinary Conference on
Environment, University of Nevada-Reno, Reno, Nevada
Lucie-Smith, Edward, Western Biennale of Art, John
Natsoulas Center for the Arts, Davis, CA. 2005
Becker, Lisa Tamiris, Julia Couzens: Net Work, Claremont
Graduate School, Claremont, CA. 2003
Public C oll ections
Confer ence Paper
Elaine O’Brien, PhD, Julia Couzens: Melusine After the Cry,
Body and Soul: Exploring Objects – Making Myths,
Association of Art Historians Annual Conference, Edinburgh,
Scotland. April 2000
Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, The Fine Arts
Museums, San Francisco, California
Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, Roswell, New
Mexico
Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas
Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio
California State University-Sacramento, Sacramento,
California
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California
Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery, University of Nevada-Las
Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada
Equitable Life, New York, New York
Fine Arts Museum, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah
The Frederick Weisman Collection, Los Angeles, California
Hewlett-Packard, Dublin, Ireland
Jay-Allen Eisen Law Corporation, Sacramento, California
KVIE 6 Public Television, Sacramento, California
Livingston and Mattesich, Sacramento, California
Marriott Hotel, Anaheim, California
Montgomery Securities, San Francisco, California
New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain,
Connecticut
Oakland Museum, Oakland, California
Richard L. Nelson Gallery & Fine Arts Collection,
University of California-Davis, Davis, California
Sacramento City College, Sacramento, California
Saks Fifth Avenue, Beverly Hills, California and Denver,
Colorado
Sheraton Grand Hotel, Sacramento, California
Syntex Corporation, Palo Alto, California
University Art Museum, Berkeley, California
Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina,
Greensboro, North Carolina
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
Bi bl iography
Book s
McGarrell, Ann, The Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program,
An Anecdotal History, University of New Mexico Press, 2007
FitzGibbon, John, The Pilot Hill Collection, Crocker Art
Museum, Sacramento, CA. 2002
Catalogue s and Brochure s
Pritikin, Renny, Maidment, University Gallery, California State
University-Stanislaus, Turlock, CA. 2009
Pritikin, Renny, Flatlanders2, Richard L. Nelson Gallery,
University of California-Davis, Davis, CA. 2008
Rufe and Fleming, Beyond A Gift of Time, Roswell Museum
and Art Center, Roswell, NM. 2007
Selected Periodicals
Pritikin, Renny, “On Artist’s Artists: Jim Melchert and Julia
Couzens,” blog.sfmoma.org, posted July 15, 2010
Samaniego, Danielle, “Hauntology,” 96 hours, San Francisco
Chronicle, July 29, 2010
Roth, David, SquareCylinder.com, April 2009
Dalkey, Victoria, “Don’t let the Title Intimidate,” Sacramento
Bee, October 23, 2009
katie-d-i-d.blogspot.com, posted November 18, 2009
Dalkey, Victoria, “Mastery’s on the Line,” Sacramento Bee,
September 19, 2008
Dalkey, Victoria, “Strange Fascination,” Sacramento Bee,
February 5, 2006
Roth, David, “Julia Couzens at CCA,” Artweek, March 2006.
illus.
Blunk, Dawn, “Heart of the Art,” Sacramento Magazine,
April 2004
Dalkey, Victoria, “Unraveling the Threads of Life,”
Sacramento Bee, October 26, 2003
Munich, Suzanne, “Fancies,” The Davis Enterprise,
November 6, 2003
Gonzales, Anne, “The Life of Art,” Profile. Sacramento
Magazine, May 2002
Elliott, Debra, “The Art in the Imperfect,” The Commercial
Appeal, February 1, 2001
Hall, David, “Specks and Blots,” The Memphis Flyer,
February 1, 2001
Blunk, Dawn, “Art Appreciation,” Sacramento Magazine,
April 2001
Dalkey, Victoria, “Lively altars,” Sacramento Bee, October
28, 2001
Shackelford, Penelope, “Julia Couzens at Richard L. Nelson
Gallery,” Artweek, January 2000. illus.
Glackin, William, “Wonderful Variety of Modern Dance Takes
off in ‘Landings,’” Sacramento Bee, April 10, 2000
Dalkey, Victoria, “Two Artists, One New Vision,” Sacramento
Bee, July 30, 2000. illus.
Garcia, Martha, “Couzens, Moment Collaboration,” WestArt,
August 2000
Video
Portraits, Richard L. Nelson Gallery, University of CaliforniaDavis, Davis, California 2011
ART2: Julia Couzens and Jerald Silva. Snow Globe
Productions. Funded in part by the Sutter Health Foundation,
Sacramento, California 2008
Julia Haft-Candell
Night, 2011
epoxy clay, fired porcelain, fired terra cotta, glaze, ink,
screw, silk and thread
17 x 6 x 18 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Julia Haft-Candell
Furl, 2011
cotton, epoxy clay, fired porcelain, glaze, ink, screw,
silk, thread and wire
24 x 10 x 5 ¼ inches
Courtesy of the artist
The work echoes my attempts at understanding the uncertainties I encounter in the world. I am creating a
vocabulary with which I can speak of the phenomenal interconnectedness of all things. This vocabulary is
comprised of parts that are repetitively constructed, added, subtracted and rearranged in order to form a
composition that most effectively speaks to the ambiguity of perception.
Using small components to build larger forms allows me more freedom to continually invent, reassess and make
endless decisions about how the work takes shape. The sculpture is a physical record of its making, and a reflection
of its own history. Breaking is an essential part of this process. Often I will break apart pieces to reconfigure
them, creating collages using three-dimensional parts. Once a piece is composed I will put time into mending
and drawing on the surface of the piece, reclaiming and giving value to what is broken or distressed.
Julia Haft-Candell
Darkish, Dusky, Orsa, 2011
calligraphy paper, epoxy clay, fired porcelain, glaze, gouache, ink, silk, steel, thread,
vellum, watercolor, wire and wood
105 x 38 x 30 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Darkish, Dusky, Orsa, (details)
Julia Haft-Candell
Lobe (Cornelius), 2011
calligraphy paper, cotton, epoxy clay, fired porcelain, fired terra cotta, glaze, graphite, ink, pins,
polyester, quilt batting, screws, steel, thread and wire
dimensions vary
Courtesy of the artist
Lobe (Cornelius), (details)
Julia Haft-Candell
Mabel, 2011
calligraphy paper, cotton, epoxy clay, fired porcelain, fired terra cotta, glaze, ink, metal clamp, pins, silk,
steel, tempera paint, thread, wire and wood
92 x 92 x 46 inches,
Courtesy of the artist
Mabel, (details)
Julia Haft-Candell
Minna, 2011
epoxy clay, fired porcelain, glaze, gouache, ink, pins, silk, steel, tempera paint, thread, vellum,
watercolor, wire and wood
66 x 90 x 34 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Minna, (details)
Julia Haft-Candell
Mo, 2011
calligraphy paper, epoxy clay, fired porcelain, glaze, ink, silk, steel, tempera paint, thread and wood
46 x 38 x 34 inches
Courtesy of the artist
Mo, (details)
Julia Haft-Candell
Trellises (Ila), 2011
aluminum, cotton, epoxy clay, fired porcelain, fired terra cotta, glaze, gouache, graphite, ink, pins, silk,
steel, thread, vellum, wire and wood
dimensions vary
Courtesy of the artist
Trellises (Ila), (details)
All art courtesy of the artist.
Cela (Tiny), 2011
cotton, epoxy clay, fired porcelain, glaze, ink, screw
and thread
12 x 4 ½ x 7 ½ inches
Darkish, Dusky, Orsa, 2011
calligraphy paper, epoxy clay, fired porcelain, glaze,
gouache, ink, silk, steel, thread, vellum, watercolor,
wire and wood
105 x 38 x 30 inches
Furl, 2011
cotton, epoxy clay, fired porcelain, glaze, ink, screw,
silk, thread and wire
24 x 10 x 5 ¼ inches
Lobe (Cornelius), 2011
calligraphy paper, cotton, epoxy clay, fired porcelain,
fired terra cotta, glaze, graphite, ink, pins, polyester,
quilt batting, screws, steel, thread and wire
dimensions vary
Nature Study (Chain), 2011
gouache, ink and watercolor on paper
9 x 12 inches
Nature Study (Grid), 2011
gouache, ink and watercolor on paper
9 x 6 ½ inches
Nature Study (Numbers), 2011
gouache, graphite, ink and watercolor on paper
11 x 8 ½ inches
Nature Study (Portrait), 2011
gouache, ink and watercolor on paper
12 x 9 inches
Nature Study (Portrait of two), 2011
gouache, graphite, ink and watercolor on paper
12 x 9 inches
Nature Study (Pull), 2011
gouache, ink and watercolor on paper
9 x 10 ¼ inches
Mabel, 2011
calligraphy paper, cotton, epoxy clay, fired porcelain,
fired terra cotta, glaze, ink, metal clamp, pins, silk,
steel, tempera paint, thread, wire and wood
92 x 92 x 46 inches
Nature Study (Small), 2011
gouache, ink and watercolor on paper
6 ½ x 5 inches
Mimi, 2011
drawing paper, epoxy clay, fired porcelain, glaze,
gouache, ink, pins, screw, silk, thread and watercolor
11 x 10 x 5 inches
Night, 2011
epoxy clay, fired porcelain, fired terra cotta, glaze,
ink, screw, silk and thread
17 x 6 x 18 inches
Minna, 2011
epoxy clay, fired porcelain, glaze, gouache, ink, pins,
silk, steel, tempera paint, thread, vellum, watercolor,
wire and wood
66 x 90 x 34 inches
Trellises (Ila), 2011
aluminum, cotton, epoxy clay, fired porcelain, fired
terra cotta, glaze, gouache, graphite, ink, pins, silk,
steel, thread, vellum, wire and wood
dimensions vary
Mo, 2011
calligraphy paper, epoxy clay, fired porcelain, glaze,
ink, silk, steel, tempera paint, thread and wood
46 x 38 x 34 inches
Born
Res ides
Oakland, California
Los Angeles, California
Educati on
2010
2006
2005
M.F.A., California State University-Long Beach, Long Beach, California
Post Baccalaureate studies, Ceramics, California State University-San Francisco, San Francisco, California
B.A., University of California-Davis, Davis, California
Solo and Tw o-Pe rson Exhibitions
2011
2010
2009
2008
String Theory, Huntington Beach Art Center, Huntington Beach, California
Julia Haft-Candell at ACME, ACME, Los Angeles, California
Systems, Ventura College Art Gallery, Ventura, California
Orderly, Max Gatov Gallery, Long Beach, California
Orderly Detritus, Neon Gallery, Long Beach, California
Axons and Dendrites, Maxine Merlino Gallery, Long Beach, California
New Work, Gallery FA-2, Long Beach, California
Selected Gr oup Exhibiti ons
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
Los Angeles Museum of Ceramic Art at ACME, ACME Gallery, Los Angeles, California
Project Space: Migration, National Council on Education for the Ceramics Arts Conference 2011, Tampa, Florida
Breakdown, Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman University, Orange, California
Tubular, Pacific Design Center, West Hollywood, California
Point of Departure, East/West Galleries, Texas Women’s University, Denton, Texas
Materiality, Phantom Gallery, Long Beach, California
Common Thread, Coastline College Art Gallery, Huntington Beach, California
Insights 2010: Annual Juried Student Exhibition, University Art Museum, Long Beach, California
Phylum, Canessa Gallery, San Francisco, California
Insights 2009: Annual Juried Student Exhibition, University Art Museum, Long Beach, California
Project Space, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts Conference 2009, Phoenix, Arizona
Insights 2008: Annual Juried Student Exhibition, University Art Museum, Long Beach, California
Mesh, Gatov Gallery, Long Beach, California
Feed, Gatov Gallery, Long Beach, California
The Liminal, Dutzi Gallery, Long Beach, California
California Clay Competition, The Artery, Davis, California
Contemporary Building 9, Basement Gallery, University of California-Davis, Davis, California
Bi bl iography
Kilston, Lyra, “Los Angeles Museum of Ceramic Art,” artforum.com critics pick, January 20, 2011
Pagel, David, “Art Review- ‘Los Angeles Museum of Ceramic Art’ at ACME,” Los Angeles Times, January 13, 2011
Harvey, Doug, “Green Room Wormhole Sideshow” (exhibition essay), March 2010
Lipeless, Jason, “Art News,” The Long Beach Press Telegram, May 15, 2009
“The Project Space,” NCECA Journal 2009, Volume 30, p.150, April 2009
Major Sponsors to the Exhibition:
The Huntington Beach Art Center Foundation
The City of Huntington Beach
Julia Couzens offers special thanks to Rosalie McGee, Jerald
Silva and Lisa Young for their help in the preparation of this
exhibition.
Lenders to the exhibition:
Jay-Allen Eisen Law Corporation
Jerald Silva
Julia Haft-Candell offers special thanks to Jason Trinidad for
his help in preparation of this exhibition.
This Catalogue is published in conjunction with the exhibition
String Theory
July 9 – August 20, 2011
at the Huntington Beach Art Center
538 Main Street, Huntington Beach, CA 92648
714-374-1650 www.huntingtonbeachartcenter.org
Copyright © 2011 Huntington Beach Art Center
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written
permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978-0-9797431-4-6
Catalogue Editor:
Matt Murdock
Printing By:
Claremont Print and Copy, Claremont, CA
Print Run of 500 copies
Design By:
Erin McGuinness, Design Monkey
Catalogue Set in Geometric415.
Front Cover:
Julia Couzens
Heavy Sacrifice, (detail)
Back Cover:
Julia Haft-Candell
Minna, (detail)
All photography by Nancy Newman
HU NTINGTON BEACH
A RT C EN TER FOUN DATION
Mike Adams, Chair
Mary Louise Shattuck, Vice Chair & Treasurer
Elise Hartman, Secretary
Diana Casey, Honorary Chair
Benita Jacobs
Eunice Nicholson
Lauri Owens
Dale Skerik
Marilynn Tom
HON ORA RY ADVISORY BOARD
Ralph Bauer
Connie Boardman
Shirley Dettloff
HON ORA RY MEMBERS
Sondra Blau
Gerald L. Chapman, D.D.S.
Dr. Gilbert Fujimoto
Alex Gerstenzang
John Gilbert
Robert B. Goodrich, Founding Chair
Mary Harris
Terry Harrison
Dr. Robert Mah
Connie Mandic
Tracy Pellman
Cindy Picquelle
Rich & Dianne Rector
Eve Thompson
Dr. Burton F. & Doris Willis
Henry Yee
A LLIED A RTS BOARD
Kara Rudin, Chair
Suzanne Boller, Vice Chair
Eveline Eng
Diana LoSchiavo
Matt Rudin
Catherine Stip
CITY C OUNCIL
Joe Carchio, Mayor
Don Hansen, Mayor Pro Tem
Connie Boardman
Keith Bohr
Devin Dwyer
Matthew Harper
Joe Shaw
CITY STAFF
Fred Wilson, City Administrator
Paul Emery, Interim Director, Community Services
Janeen Laudenback, Superintendent of Recreation,
Human & Cultural Services
Kate Hoffman, Executive Director
Darlene D. DeAngelo, Curator
Charlene Clary, Office Administrator
Desiree Li Yan Hui, Education Coordinator
Matt Murdock, Department Assistant
Andre Woodward, Preparator
STA FF
Randy English
Garrett Hallman
Paul Howard
Vince Ransom
Adria Thomke
Craig Woods
Elaine Zellie
The Huntington Beach Art Center is a community arts and cultural center serving Huntington Beach
and the Southern California region. The Center presents the works of artists producing in all media.
Through exhibitions, performances, film/video screenings, lectures and educational programming,
the HBAC serves to advance public awareness and understanding of cultural, historic, and
contemporary perspectives. The HBAC creates opportunities for local, regional and national artists
and the community to share in a climate of experimentation, education and experience.
538 Main Street Huntington Beach California 92648
Phone: 714-374-1650 Web: www.huntingtonbeachartcenter.org
ISBN: 978-0-9797431-4-6