Candace Gaudiani was born in Boston and grew up in Wisconsin and Maine. She holds a A.B., cum laude, in English Literature, and an MBA from Harvard University. Gaudiani studied fine art and portraiture at University of California, Berkeley, and print-making with the print maker for the late Eugene Smith. She lives and works in the San Francisco Bay area.

Gaudiani started to pursue photography at age 50, having done art in her youth, so she was keenly aware that she didn’t have time to make art she wasn’t passionate about. She became very ill starting in 2011, and was finally diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2015. Since then, she has worked hard to mitigate the symptoms of this disease. Now she is 80 years old. Her sense of urgency is profound. Three years ago, she found she could connect again with photography, and it has been a joyful reunion.

Gaudiani’s narrative work with people explores what lies beneath the public face. Her landscape work pictures America through train windows, considering – What is ‘home’? How do our memories and the speed at which we move through life shape us? From what do we derive our identity? Can we ever see clearly where we have been and what we have become? Can we ever understand ‘place’ or ‘each other’? Attracted to dark themes as a youth, as she finds herself experiencing some of late life’s darknesses, Gaudiani explores new modes of expression – through video, audio and dance – and finds beauty in unexpected places in her most recent work.

Her works are held in numerous collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; George Eastman House; The Prentice and Paul Collection/Sack Photographic Trust; Art Museum of the Americas, Organization of American States; the Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection; The Harry Ransom Center for the Humanities, Austin, Texas; Ryerson University, Toronto; and private collections. Her work is exhibited widely in the United States and Europe.