Candace Hicks
Nacogdoches, Texas
Nacogdoches, Texas
Bio: Candace Hicks, Associate Professor at Stephen F. Austin State University, teaches foundational courses in two-dimensional media. She holds a BA from Austin College and an MFA in Printmaking from Texas Christian University. Hicks has had solo exhibitions at Women and Their Work in Austin, Lawndale Art Center in Houston, Living Arts in Tulsa, The Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts in Lubbock, Abecedarian Gallery in Denver, and The Center for Book Arts in New York City. She is represented by Booklyn.
Statement: Candace Hicks has been making artists’ books for over ten years. These book works use her collections of coincidences to examine the ways that we attach meaning to random events and spiritualize and mystify the ordinary. Hicks began collecting coincidences when she read two books in a row that included the phrase “antique dental instrument.” While that was not the first coincidence she had noticed in her reading, that singular instance convinced her to keep a record. She began to consider the notion that the phrase might have been the profound masquerading as the mundane. As it turned out, “antique dental instrument” has not held any special meaning. Neither have any of the coincidental phrases that followed, such as “stuffed mountain lion” or “black currant lozenge,” but the act of noticing them became the lens through which Hicks filters the world and her experiences. Her ongoing series, Common Threads, is held in collections including MoMA in New York City and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and many university special collections including Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.
Statement: Candace Hicks has been making artists’ books for over ten years. These book works use her collections of coincidences to examine the ways that we attach meaning to random events and spiritualize and mystify the ordinary. Hicks began collecting coincidences when she read two books in a row that included the phrase “antique dental instrument.” While that was not the first coincidence she had noticed in her reading, that singular instance convinced her to keep a record. She began to consider the notion that the phrase might have been the profound masquerading as the mundane. As it turned out, “antique dental instrument” has not held any special meaning. Neither have any of the coincidental phrases that followed, such as “stuffed mountain lion” or “black currant lozenge,” but the act of noticing them became the lens through which Hicks filters the world and her experiences. Her ongoing series, Common Threads, is held in collections including MoMA in New York City and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and many university special collections including Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.