Carol Es
Bio
Carol Es is a self-taught artist and native Los Angelina born in 1968. Her artistic nature formed early at age six, drawing cartoons underneath tables in bowling alleys. Shy and reclusive, she spent most of her time alone while her family relocated more than 15 times before her tenth birthday. As a result, she attended school infrequently and began working as a pattern cutter in the apparel industry with her family while living on her own to fend for herself by just age fourteen.
In her young adulthood, she established herself as artist, musician and writer, forming her own patronage by distributing handmade Artists' books and zines while traveling as a drummer. She eventually set aside music to concentrate more privately on art and has since become a prolific and dedicated visual artist.
Carol expresses herself wholly in her art after surviving a tumultuous childhood of sexual abuse and neglect. She uses past experience, family dysfunction and Jewish heritage as the fuel for her subject matter, transforming a broken past into a culmination of paper collage, garment patterns, sewing pins, thread, text, and prose - personal experiences laid bare and forged directly into the work. Viewers can sense a distinct honesty in her work, and a dark, childlike humor that intertwines with her paintings, drawings, installations, and books.
Her works are featured in numerous private and public collections including the Getty Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, UCLA Special Collections, the Jaffe Collection, and Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Carol has exhibited at The Riverside Art Museum, Torrance Art Museum, Santa Monica Museum of Art, The Craft & Folk Art Museum, and Zimmer Children's Museum. She is also a two-time recipient of The ARC Grant from the Durfee Foundation in Santa Monica, Ca.
Solo Exhibitions
2008 She Dreamed She Remembered, George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2008 Above the Bias Forces, Tinney Contemporary, Nashville, TN
2007 Monogenetic Dreams From the Rag Trade, Koelsch Gallery, Houston, TX
2007 All Done But None, George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2007 A Girl Apart, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA
2006 My Identity Lab, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, CA
2005 Carol Es, George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2005 Hybrids and Mongrels, Highways Performance Space and Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2004 Distance Divided by 3, I-5 Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2003 Cutting Patterns, Highways Performance Space and Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
Selected Group Exhibitions
2008 Summer Salon, George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2008 Listen to Your Heart, MOHS Exhibit, Copenhagen, Denmark
2008 Bookish, Seattle University Center for the Arts, Seattle, WA
2007 Selections from the 7th National Sunnyview Exhibit, Union College, Schenectady, NY
2007 Outside the Box, Greene Contemporary, Sarasota, FL
2007 Dark Objects, Light Matter, Galleri Urbane, Marfa, TX
2007 Material Girls, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA (Catalog)
2007 HEALING: A Cultural Exploration, Craft & Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA
2006 Perspectives, LA Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2005 Summer Group Show, George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2004 Incognito, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA
2003 Between the Lines, LA Women Artists, Bedlam Art, Los Angeles, CA
2002 Held Ransom, three. Gallery, San Pedro, CA
2001 Go Figure, Bush Barn Art Center, Salem Arts Association, Salem, OR
2000 Westside Art Gallery, Venice, CA
1999 Forming the Early Days of LA Punk, Track 16 Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
1998 Orlando Gallery, Sherman Oaks, CA
1997 The Brain & Self, University of Arizona Postcard Exhibition, Copenhagen, Denmark
1994- 1997 Verve Gallery, West Hollywood, CA
Selected Collections
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Centre Pompidou, Bibliotheque Kandinsky, Paris, France
J. Paul Getty Trust, Research Institute Library, Los Angeles, CA
Fred Giampietro Art, New Haven, CT
The Arthur and Mata Jaffe Collection, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL
Beverly Kaye, Art Brut Collection, Woodbridge, CT
Paul Kirkpatrick Music, London, UK
Juliette Lewis, Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
The Jack Morton Company, Atlanta & NY
Memory Bridge, Chicago, IL
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC
Otis College of Art & Design, Artists' Books Collection, Los Angeles, CA
The Ann Savage Collection, Los Angeles, CA
UCLA Library, Special Collections, Los Angeles, CA
Zetter Collection, Carlsbad, CA
Gail Zone, Los Angeles, CA
Awards and Honors
2008 Print Residency, Self Help Graphics, Los Angeles, CA
2007 Artists' Resource for Completion Grant, The Durfee Foundation, Santa Monica, CA
2007 Best in Show Award, Sunnyview Rehabilitation Hospital, Schenectady, NY
2005 Artists' Resource for Completion Grant, The Durfee Foundation, Santa Monica, CA
2005 Artist Grant, Yellow Fox Foundation, Palos Verdes, CA
2004 Scholarship Award, Los Angeles Art Association, Los Angeles, CA
2004 Technical Assistance Grant, National Arts and Disability Center / California Arts Council
2004 Residency Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT
2003 Foundation Grant, Artists' Fellowship Inc., New York, NY
2003 Honorarium, Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, Short Hills, NJ