I was born in 1953 in New York City, an only child to a middle class Jewish family. My father died when I was 8 leaving my mother and myself alone without much. My mother’s parents helped us as much as they could, but we struggled to make ends meet.

I began painting in 1993 as a healing tool to cope with a breakdown, resulting from the trauma of rape and abuse. My art work acted as a vent in a pressure cooker, to stop my head from exploding. It created a safe state to release feelings that could not be articulated.

From 1993 I never stopped compulsively making art. I paint mostly lying on my stomach on my bed. Having my elbows on the mattress gives my hands great control for detail. I do not use a brush to paint; it feels unfamiliar to hold one. I use squeeze tubes of paints to make series of dots or lines and many different types of pens and markers.

My art is a spontaneous stream of consciousness.  I do not plan a drawing or painting it comes from within my internal world. Characters seen in the paintings sometimes resemble my mother, father, husband, and me. Also many animals and creatures are surrogates assuming human identities. There are many hidden beings within my art sharing mouths or eyes, embedded into each other.

In 1997 I founded “Survivors Art Foundation”, a non-profit organization, to assist other disabled artists. I dedicated my energy towards showing their art, developing a website (www.survivorsartfoundation.org), and speaking out about abuse. On rare occasions I showed my artwork, but I was afraid it would reveal too much about me.  I did not hang my work in my own house or put it on exhibit until 2002.

The journey I have taken with art has been coming to terms with and resolving my past in order to live in peace in the present.  The art has become meditative in nature, providing time when I am happy and at peace.

              Candyce has three daughters and lives with her husband, Michael, on Long Island.