Based in Toronto, James Carl is one of
the city’s leading artists. He creates small- and large-scale
sculpture, made from a wide range of materials, from cardboard to
marble, to venetian blinds. In the early 1990s Carl entered the art
scene in Montreal by crafting expensive consumer goods (washing
machines, stoves) from inexpensive materials such as found cardboard,
only to place the finished sculptures back on the streets where their
materials were originally retrieved. In a subsequent body of work, Carl
carved replicas of disposable electronics out of marble – a traditional
sculptor’s material with connotations of permanence. Most recently, Carl
constructs large-scale, amorphous sculptures by intricately weaving
brightly coloured venetian blinds in a series titled jalousie.
Carl has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally. Most recently, the first major survey of his work, entitled do you know what,
was presented at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at the University of
Toronto, the Cambridge Galleries Queen’s Square and the MacDonald
Stewart Art Centre in Guelph. Other recent shows include: jalousie at Galerie Heinz-Martin Weigand in Karlsruhe, Germany; negative spaces at Florence Loewy in Paris; plot at Vancouver’s Contemporary Art Gallery, and bottom feeder
at Mercer Union in Toronto. Carl earned his MFA from Rutgers
University and has degrees from McGill, the University of Victoria and
the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing. His work is in public and
private collections across North America and Europe. Currently, Carl is
an Associate Professor of Studio Art at the University of Guelph.
jalousie (blue/green) - 2010
venetian blinds
90" x 70" x 106"