Yevgeniya Baras and Julia Haft-Candell: Parts of Speech

Parts of Speech brings together a sculptor and a painter whose working process is intuitive and whose tactile abstractions straddle the symbolic and the mystical.  Baras' paintings are assembled, with new elements and layers added over time, resulting in idiosyncratic objects with strong bas-relief textures and sumptuous surfaces.  Haft-Candell's ceramic sculptures marry two surface treatments: one, unglazed black clay with a white slip into which the artist has carved a woven sgraffito motif, and the other, layers of glaze over organic forms.  Seen together for the first time in Parts of Speech, the artists' parallel approaches are made clear.  Additionally, Haft-Candell's sculptures bring out the objecthood of Baras' paintings, and Baras' paintings invite closer inspection of the surface treatments and undulations of Haft-Candell’s sculptures.

 Exhibition Checklist

"In 2017, I created The Infinite: Glossary of Terms and Symbols, an ongoing, illustrated guide that describes the personal and political symbolism for each recurring character in the infinite. The glossary entries—such as Legs, Combs and Arches—communicate an ideology focused on movement, shape-shifting and the body. Many of the terms have roots in traditional craft activities, such as Knots, Weaving and Braiding. Each definition I write asserts that they have multiple, often paradoxical, identities; they are not fixed nor easily defined, and can occupy several positions without hierarchy."

   - Julia Haft-Candell