Carl's acrylic and mixed media paintings often delve into history, literature and mythology. Born in the UK in 1967, he began his career as a typographer and designer in the 1980s before developing as a self-taught painter in Australia. He has BA in History with a First Class Honours in Sociology.
He merges urban and traditional techniques on the canvas in a style that is both raw and reflective. His paintings question consciousness, exploring our waking dreams and our public and private myths. This has evolved into a process he calls prophetic surrealism - a way of seeing the present and anticipating the future.
His images have been published in international magazines and journals of poetry, politics and culture. Carl's most recent series - The Assassination of Judy Garland - explores a metaphorical portrait of America to make sense of the current global political crisis using a queer, cultural lens.
In 2012 his art is re-imagining our messianic tendencies within the new synthetic genomics* technology in The Resurrection of the Tin Man - Pt1. The paintings draw inspiration from religious art in all cultures, histories and literary genres. He funds his art practice by working as a researcher and personal assistant.
"Painting is just another way of keeping a diary" - Pablo Picasso
Carl's early work between 1988-2000 reflect the sub-cultural communities in urban Australia. The autobiographical works focus on his personal experiences. These include early stints in the fashion and arts industries, academia and then editing. These themes were mainly sensual, colourful observations of a society - if not exactly in decline - then happily oblivious to the world. He held his first and second solo exhibitions at Bridge Gallery - Solo and Dualities - in Western Australia and then had a long gestation period in which he developed his ideas and techniques with paint. (Galleries 1991, 1992).
"Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all be a little more gentle with each other, and a little more loving, have a little more empathy, and maybe, we'd like each other a little bit more." - Judy Garland
After 2001 his work re-oriented toward understanding our radically altered consciousness under both technological change and the so called 'War on Terror'. Spiritual questions then led him to examine the moral and legal aspects of killing in combat and how today’s political narratives mirror the mythological archetypes of our past. In 2006 he began integrating digital processes, photo & hand stencils, screen printing and aerosol spray into his more traditional painting technique - most notably in 2006's Sedition and Other Bedtime Stories. He has also been inspired by street art, old subway film posters and 60s airport paperback covers.
In 2011 Carl completed a body of paintings called The Assassination of Judy Garland - a Metaphorical Portrait of America - Part 1 (2008-11). It is a visual Chansons de Geste * about prophecy, politics and modern war. These paintings delve into contemporary political myth-making using both Chansons de Geste and the Hollywood musical. He uses the literary imagination as a way to explore the multiple worlds and realities that we choose to blueprint our futures by embedding them into our popular culture. Our stories create our sense of time, place and the way we decide our fate. Politics isn't easy and the Left/Right divides isn't are outmoded expressions that hunger for an alternate lens. These paintings series investigates the artistic dimension in changing our political consciousness. An exhibition date is yet to be set. (Galleries 2001, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011).
"God does not play dice" - Albert Einstein
In 2011 Carl began The Resurrection of the Tin Man - Part 2 (2011) . With the previous paintings used as a 'gateway' for an imaginative-process he calls 'prophetic surrealism', Tin Man explores a fictional genetically engineered life-form that becomes a messiah across several paintings.
Feeling very inspired by this new phase, Carl has embraced different metaphors, music and collaboration with people who embody particular qualities he admires, and who have lent their identities as characters on his canvas.. It is still a book of sorts, with chapters, but allowing a fictional character to develop each painting, to take charge of it, is a new and adventurous process. In a sense, these paintings attempt an imaginary catechism. Rejecting religious conflict and re-writing dystopian narratives . (read the Science Tags)
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