Carl Beam is an Anishinaabe visual artist who was born in West Bay on Manitoulin Island. He attended the Garnier Indian Residential School in Spanish, Ontario. He was among the first generation of Indigenous artists on Turtle Island to formally study art. In 1971, he attended the Kooteney School of Art then transferred to the University of Victoria in 1973 where he completed his BFA. He then went on to complete the first year of his MFA at the University of Alberta at Edmonton in 1975–1976. He left the program after his thesis topic was rejected. Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol were professed to be of influence to Beam’s practice, particularly in his collage and silkscreen prints.

“Spanish Reunion ’88 (The Unexplained)” refers to a reunion that Carl Beam attended at the Garnier Residential School in Spanish, Ontario during 1988. This silkscreen triptych portrays a doubled image of a hooded Apache Gaan dancer with a Pietá scene below. This print was subsequently represented in his “The Columbus Suite” series of 1989 under the title “The Unexplained.”

© Carl Beam / CARCC Ottawa 2024