Carl Beam

Saskatchewan NAC Auction House Biography and Notes

Carl Beam R.C.A. (1943 - 2005), born Carl Edward Migwans. Carl Beam was born in 1943, in M'Chigeeng First Nation, in Ontario. From the age of ten he was sent to Garnier Residential School, in Ontario, until he left as a young man. In the mid-1980s, Beam began working with new techniques for incorporating photo-imagery into his work, utilizing a heat transfer technique learned from fellow artist Ann Beam. He also began working with photo emulsion and mixed media on paper and on canvas., often juxtaposing imagery from the spiritual, natural, and political worlds, and incorporating his own poetic inscriptions. "My works are like little puzzles, interesting little games. I play a game of dreaming ourselves as each other. In this we find out that we're all basically human." A major retrospective of his work was mounted by the National Gallery of Canada in 2010, recognizing Beam as one of the country's most important artists. He worked in various photographic mediums, mixed media, oil, works on paper, Plexiglas, sculpture, ceramics, and found objects, and etching, lithography, and screen processes.