Carl Beam

Carl Beam is an internationally acclaimed Canadian artist of Ojibwe descent. He was born in 1943 at M’Chigeeng First Nation (West Bay) on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron. As a child he was sent to a residential school in Spanish, Ontario, a small town on the North Channel shore of Lake Huron. It was an unpleasant experience that he referenced in only one small artwork based on a class photo in which he outlined his image in red ink.

Beam studied art at the Kootenay School of Art at Selkirk College, and received his Bachelor of Fine Art degree from the University of Victoria in 1974. He also did post-graduate work at the University of Alberta.

During his career Beam worked in a range of media, including large format drawings, watercolours, etchings, photographs, installations and ceramics. In the early 1980s he and his wife Ann lived in New Mexico and Arizona, learning about the ancient Anasazi earthenware style and the techniques and materials used by the Pueblo Indians in their pottery making. The Beams excitedly explored the possibilities offered for creating hand-made ceramic works from locally sourced, natural materials. The act of pottery making reflected their personal view that respect for nature was of the utmost importance.

In 1990 they returned to Manitoulin Island where they built an adobe house, a simple, thermally efficient structure built from materials on-site. It reflected Beam’s interest in sustainable living. He delighted in telling people how well it survived Northern Ontario’s harsh winters.

Beam received the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2005, just months before he died. His work has been exhibited throughout North America and in Italy, Denmark, Germany and China. In 1986 the National Gallery of Canada purchased his painting The North American Iceberg, the first Native artwork the gallery purchased as a piece of contemporary art rather than as ethnographic art. It was a notable event that marked the movement of Aboriginal art from the margin into the mainstream.