Passage Projects

Julia Couzens

“Eavesdropper,” 2022
Textiles, wire, thread

"Like an uninvited party guest, “Eavesdropper” hopes to ingratiate itself in gestures of supplication, ever hopeful, scanning for entry and access. If “Eavesdropper” had eyelashes, it would bat them.” Julia Couzens

Julia Couzens’s textile-based constructions take shape between the disciplines of craft and the expressive character of abstract painting and sculpture. Reflecting the imperfectly beautiful and unapologetically flawed, collapse, malleability, and ragtag engineering coexist with speculations on feminist theory, cognitive uncertainty, and enchantment in a provisional world.

Couzens has exhibited extensively throughout California, the United States, and internationally. National recognition includes a Louis Comfort Tiffany Fellowship and a Roswell Artist-in-Residence grant. Her work is held in over twenty public collections including the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts; Berkeley Art Museum; Butler Institute of American Art; Crocker Art Museum; Manetti Shrem Museum; Oakland Museum of California; Weatherspoon Art Museum; and Yale University Art Gallery. Couzens has been a visiting artist at over forty institutions, most recently presenting a paper on contemporary textile practices at the 2019 Cheongju Contemporary Craft Biennale, South Korea. Her writing has been published in artpractical.com; ceramics: art and perception; sacramento bee; squarecylinder.com; twocoatsofpaint.com and numerous exhibition catalogues.

Born and raised in Auburn, California, Couzens was educated at University of California, Davis (MFA) and currently divides her time between the Sacramento River Delta community of Clarksburg and Los Angeles.