Lilli Carré

Lilli Carré (born 1983) is a contemporary artist, film maker and cartoonist from Los Angeles. She now lives and works in Chicago.

Early life and education

Carré was born and grew up in Los Angeles. Her mother is a graphic designer and her father, who died when Carré was a teenager, was a designer and forensic animator. She has said that a "major activity throughout my childhood was when my parents would roll out a big sheet of butcher paper on the apartment floor, and my sister and I would amuse ourselves quietly for hours by drawing images and stories all over it". Carré transferred to an arts high school in her senior year and then left Los Angeles, initially to study sound at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and become a sound artist, but she became interested in creative writing, film, and printmaking. While studying she also worked in the Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection. As part of her creative writing classes she read various short story writers and cites Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar as having inspired her very much. She received her BFA from SAIC in 2006 and settled in Chicago where she currently lives and works. Carré worked part-time at the Facets Multi-Media film library for several years, an experience she has said influenced her filmmaking.

Work

Her books of comics include Nine Ways to Disappear, The Lagoon, and Tales of Woodsman Pete. An excerpt from The Lagoon was chosen to be included in The Best American Comics 2010 and "The Carnival" was nominated for Outstanding Story at the 2009 Ignatz Awards. Carré's film How She Slept at Night screened at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

Carré has collaborated with artist and filmmaker Alexander Stewart on a number of works including slide installations, works on paper and animations. "Where Did I Leave the Thing Itself", an exhibition of their collaborative works, was held at the Roots & Culture Contemporary Art Center, Chicago, in 2012.

The commercial contemporary art gallery, Western Exhibitions, in Chicago, has represented Carré since 2012, and exhibits her work.

Carré participated in the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art's Ten x Ten 2013, which "investigates the relationship between color and sound...exploring the underlying concepts of synesthesia". In 2013, she produced an "entirely new body of work in animation, sculpture, and drawing" for her first solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

Books

• Tales Of Woodsman Pete (2006, Top Shelf Productions; ISBN 978-1891830846)
• The Lagoon (2008, Fantagraphics Books; ISBN 978-1560979548)
• Nine Ways to Disappear (2009, Little Otsu; ISBN 978-1934378175)
• The Fir-Tree (2009, It Books-HarperCollins; ISBN 978-0061782367)
• Heads or Tails (2012, Fantagraphics Books; ISBN 978-1606995976)
• Tippy and the Night Parade (2014, Toon Books; ISBN 978-1935179573)

Films

• What Hits The Moon (2005)
• How She Slept At Night (2006)
• Head Garden (2009)
• Everything Must Go, described by Carré as "an animated loop made from 500 paintings, based frame-by-frame on found footage of a windsock man blowing in the wind on top of a shuttered business".
• L'Ortolan (2010) a collaboration with filmmaker Chris Hefner, about the culinary ritual of eating the ortolan bunting bird.
• Bleedin' Heart (2011)
• Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock (2011), based on Wallace Stevens's poem of the same name.
• Pout Melody
• In Suspense (2012)
• Like a Lantern (2012)
• Crux Film (2013), a collaboration with artist and filmmaker Alexander Stewart. The film was awarded first prize at the 2014 Punto y Raya Festival.

• "LILLI CARRÉ - FILMS". Lilli Carré. 
• "Films Awarded at Punto y Raya Festival". Punto y Raya Festival. 2014.