Huguette Caland and I go a long way back. Our lives are interlaced with family and professional ties. We share a love of life and art, an attachment to our country, and a value system that have effectuated a solid friendship enriched by the passage of time and by shared experiences.

Huguette, who overflows with love, is very generous with herself as well as in her art. Exile has not changed her, but has instead made her beliefs stronger and more embedded in her person and in her work. She has lived with a profound understanding of her inner life which proves to be the well from which she draws her imagery.  Her vision has not wavered becoming deeper and more resonant even as she delves into her childhood and expresses the inexpressible. Her joie de vivre has never left her in her exile from Lebanon, but helped her recreate Beirut in Los Angeles where she opened her studio and her home to fellow artists and friends without the formality of appointments.

I am proud to play a part in celebrating Huguette Caland at an exhibition where we witness her deeply examined life whose manifestations are intricate, expansive, and subtle yet with an inner clarity that defies description. My hope is that her life will be held as an example of resiliency and constancy at a time of turbulence and upheaval and that her art will serve as a guiding light to future generations of Lebanese artists.

Nadine Begdache

2012

Scenography by Karim Bekdache