James Carl

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.