Presented by the Department of Art at Rice University, with series support from the Department of Art History, the School of Architecture, the Program in Media Studies, the Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, and the MFAH Glassell School of Art Core Program.

Julia Haft-Candell
Thursday, November 5
6:00 p.m. Reception 
6:30 p.m. Lecture
Pitman Cinema Theatre, Sarofim Hall
Event link
Artist website

 

Julia Haft-Candell works across drawing, painting, and installation, but her practice is rooted in clay-based sculpture. Drawing on the science fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia E. Butler, her ceramics converge into a fictional world she calls “the infinite” — an evolving alternate reality with its own values, ethics, and aesthetics. Language runs through the work, both directly and indirectly through a recurring lexicon of forms: hands, arches, infinity loops, chains — elemental, ancient symbols that evoke the body, in part and in whole, and our desire for contact. Within this world, Haft-Candell builds new vocabularies to make sense of our human condition and the current moment we occupy, while imagining a physicality in the work beyond convention. That ethos carries into The Infinite School, an experimental art school she runs from her studio, which seeks alternative forms of knowledge that challenge conventional institutions, traditions and pedagogies.
 

Julia Haft-Candell lives and works in Los Angeles. Her work has been exhibited at Parrasch Heijen Gallery and Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Candice Madey Gallery, New York, NY; Pitzer College Art Galleries, Claremont, CA: the de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara, CA; the Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA; and the Miller ICA, Pittsburgh, PA; among others. Her work has been written about in Artforum, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and Surface Magazine. She has had residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and Storm King Art Center, and received grants from the Center for Cultural Innovation, the California Community Foundation, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation and the Nancy Graves Foundation to name a few.

Poster promoting Julia Haft Candell, Visiting Artist Lecture event

 

The 2026-27 Visiting Artist Lecture Series is presented by the Department of Art at Rice University, with series support from the Department of Art History, the School of Architecture, the Program in Media Studies, the Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, and the MFAH Glassell School of Art Core Program.

 

All lectures are free and open to the public. 
Discounted parking available at West Lot 4, Rice University.
Flat rate of $6, credit card required.