bio
Carly Butler (she/her) is a settler artist in Canada of British and Iranian descent. She currently lives and works on Vancouver Island in Ucluelet on the traditional territory of the Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ. Her interdisciplinary practice reinterprets nautical knowledge around navigation and survival to reflect on longing, regret, and nostalgia.
Carly has an MA in Art History from The University of Manchester where she focussed her thesis studies on Iranian women artists in exile (see 'Press/Writing'). Carly later studied fine art at Central Saint Martins in London and completed a BFA at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She was a finalist for the RBC Canadian Painting Competition in 2014. Her work has been supported by Arts Nova Scotia and the BC Arts Council, as well as the Canada Council for the Arts. Carly has recently exhibited at Campbell River Art Gallery, Hatch Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia, Queens Museum, New York, and the Today Art Museum in Beijing.
Carly is currently working on a long distance digital walking project with UK artist Gudrun Filipska who is also the founder of The Arts Territory Exchange, an international arts program through which they have also been developing a virtual residency. Their walking project, The S Project, was recently featured on the CBC and their writings on the project have been published in a variety of journals including The LivingMaps Review and as part of the 'Walkings New Movement' Conference at Plymouth University, November 2019. See 'Press/Writing' for more.
Carly has also been collaborating with Nuu-chah-nulth artist Hjalmer Wenstob from the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations. They are developing projects where they can have a reciprocal conversation between settler and Indigenous histories and explore issues around colonialism and reconciliation. See: https://www.butlerandwenstob.com/
An amateur navigator, Carly has been learning celestial navigation as part of her practice and is a member of the British Columbia Offshore Sailing Association.
about the work
My work is broadly about the sea – using navigation, survival and the weather as metaphors to reflect on the human condition. Often the work is text-based and instructional in tone, implying solutions or directions for unnamed problems.
I frequently work with traditional letterpress, finding the literal weight of the lead type imprinting into paper reinforces the presentation of the words as authoritative ‘truths’. The centuries old printing method also parallels my interest in nautical history and survival at sea. I am intrigued by older or seemingly ‘outdated’ technology and how we can still use these technologies to create, navigate, and survive without modern methods of communication – whether by choice or necessity. Trying to use and preserve lost forms of knowledge is a way to regain some control over how we engage with the world. There is something methodical and meditative about both navigation and letterpress that reframes how you look at space, language, and time.
I finished a course in celestial navigation in 2018, learning how to use the sun, stars and other celestial bodies to calculate where I am on earth. While taking the course, I also embarked on a virtual walking project and collaboration with an artist in the UK – counting daily steps and applying them towards an imagined journey towards one another. The two projects coalesced as both became about thinking and travelling great distances without actually going anywhere.
My work has often been inspired by the writings of philosophical French solo sailor Bernard Moitessier. Moitessier was most famous for abandoning his chance to win the first solo non-stop round the world race – sending a message by slingshot to a passing freighter explaining that he was continuing around again ‘to save my soul.’ His writings about sailing were the catalyst for my work about navigation, as they bridge the technical with the philosophical, making us aware of layers of meaning to be found in the most seemingly banal instructions for surviving life alone on the ocean.
But recently his exploits have led me to think differently, and I am more interested in the problematic narrative he, and other navigator/explorers present of romanticized travel and exploration that often conflicts with domestic responsibilities and economics. My work has become more engaged with the idea of personal location and how one place may stand in for the adventurous journey you are unable to take due to your own limited mobility.
An anonymous sailor once wrote of navigation, ‘It both is what it is, and points beyond itself.’
EDUCATION
NSCAD (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design), Halifax
BFA - Interdisciplinary, specializing in Intermedia
Central Saint Martins, London
Fine Art - 4D specialization (video, performance and installation)
The Working Men's College, London Access to Art & Design
Sotheby's Institute / University of Manchester
MA - Post-War and Contemporary Art
University of Leeds BA - Sociology/ History of Art
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022
Victoria Arts Council, Satellite Gallery, 546 Herald Street
hišcpaa - on both sides
- with Hjalmer Wenstob
https://www.butlerandwenstob.com/
Tidal Arts Centre, Lund, BC
Atmosphere - with Deirdre Hofer
2019
Hatch Art Gallery, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
The S Project: The Shortest Distance is not a Straight Line
https://www.ubyssey.ca/culture/hatch-2019-The-S-Project/
Ou Gallery, Duncan
Send all the lifeboats you have
https://www.theougallery.com/exhibitions-events/2019/1/25/carlybutler
2018
Campbell River Art Gallery
Anywhere Else
148 Mayall Road, London UK
Project S – with Gudrun Filipska
2015
Women's Studio Workshop, Rosendale, New York
Julie M Gallery, Toronto
The Captain Knew Too Well Where He Was
- listed as a must-see by Canadian Art
2013
P|M Gallery, Toronto
You can always drop the anchor
- listed as a must-see by Canadian Art
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022
Molly Kool Heritage Centre, Fundy National Park, NB
Seafaring
presented: ‘Call me Captain - a telegram project’: When Captain Molly Kool got her Master’s Certificate she sent a telegram home saying: “Call me Captain from now on.” The project ‘Call me Captain’ recreates this telegram and sends a series of messages via telegraph to the gallery on women and seafaring – words from other female seafarers, and words from those doubting those same women.
2021
Northumbria University, UK
online exhibition: Art and Mobilities - Im/mobile Lives in Turbulent Times conference
Sichuan Fine Art Institute, China
Today’s Documents
2020
Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
A Stitch in Time
Nocturne, Halifax
Halifax to Clayoquot Sound: Re-Writing and Re-Righting History
- with Hjalmer Wenstob (see: www.butlerandwenstob.com)
Pendulum Gallery, Vancouver
Splash Art Auction: https://www.artsumbrella.com/auction-items/carly-butler/
2019
Cley-next-the-Sea, UK
Cley Contemporary
Skeidararhlaup, Iceland
Borderlines
2018
Flux Factory and Queens Museum, New York
Trek Escort Parade (S.T.E.P)
Hackney, London, UK
Daily Migrations, curated by ‘Without Appeal’ artist collective
Westminster Reference Library, London, UK
Arts Territory Exchange Archive Tour
The Cube, London, UK
Cognitive Sensations
Slide Room Gallery, Victoria, BC
Tracing Boundaries
2017
Context New York – Studio 21 Gallery
ArtYard, Frenchtown, New Jersey
Bedlam & Balance
2016
Georgia Scherman Projects, Toronto
Life Bearings: Vessna Perunovich, Anila Rubiku, Elsa Mora, Hyang Cho and Carly Butler
Reviewed in Artoronto
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia – Terroir: A Nova Scotia Survey
Reviewed in The Coast
2015
Art Toronto - Julie M Gallery
Nocturne Art at Night, Halifax
The Weather Maidens - performance and installation piece with Arianne Pollet-Brannen
One of the top 12 Nocturne picks in the Chronicle Herald.
I am NSCAD – Alumni Exhibition, Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax
IOTA Gallery, Halifax - view exhibition website with interview here
Papier 15, Montreal - Studio 21
2014
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Quebec
RBC Painting Competition Finalists
Lumière Cape Breton, Nova Scotia
The Weather Maidens - performance and installation piece with Arianne Pollet-Brannen
Papier14, Montreal - PM Gallery
2013
Studio 21, Halifax, Nova Scotia
NSCAD Emerging Artists Exhibition
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Yarmouth
Nova Scotia Art Bank Purchase Program Exhibition
The Khyber Centre for the Arts, Halifax, Nova Scotia
CXXV: Membership Exhibition Celebrating 125 Years
2012
Eyelevel Gallery,Halifax, Nova Scotia
Black Rabbit
Eyelevel Gallery,Halifax, Nova Scotia
ERI 5: The Resistance to Change
2011
1668 Barrington,Halifax, Nova Scotia
For Lease: 16 Photographers
Anna Leonowens Gallery,Halifax, Nova Scotia
Forever In Flux: Feminism in Dialogue
Port Loggia Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia
The Night Shift
The Khyber Centre for the Arts, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Performance Art Series
The Khyber Centre for the Arts, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Documentum
2010
Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Yes No Okay
Nocturne: Art at Night Festival, Halifax, Nova Scotia
site specific public outdoor installation: Creative Economy/Debt at NSCAD Port Campus
NSCAD Studios, Halifax, Nova Scotia
All is Art: Summer Studio Exhibition
2009
Trinity Buoy Wharf, East London, UK
I am not in my correct position
AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES
2023
Design Inquiry Residency - Work/Around, London UK
https://workaround.designinquiry.net/
British Columbia Arts Council- Professional Development
British Columbia Arts Council - Individual Arts Award
2022
Canada Arts Council - Strategic Innovation Fund: Seed Grant
The Hiis?uuwaa Sessions - collaborations in the Alberni/Clayoquot region
The McLoughlin Gardens Residency, Merville, BC
Tidal Arts Centre Residency, Lund, BC
2021
British Columbia Arts Council - Media Artist grant
2020
Canada Arts Council - Digital Originals; one of 6 projects selected by and featured on the CBC:
https://www.cbc.ca/arts/canadacouncildigitaloriginals/these-moms-walked-across-the-ocean-using-pedometers-to-redefine-artistic-success-1.5765484
British Columbia Arts Council - Microgrant Program
2019
Canada Art Council - Research and Creation Grant
British Columbia Arts Council - Individual Arts Award
2017
Sooke Arts Council grant – public letterpress workshop
2015
Women's Studio Workshop, Rosendale, NY (parent residency grant awarded)
Arts Nova Scotia, Creation Grant
Arts Nova Scotia, Industry Growth Grant
2014
Selected as a finalist for the 2014 RBC Painting Competition
Red Rabbit Art Residency: Sculptural Objects in the Intertidal Area, Upper Economy, Nova Scotia
2012
Self-directed one month residency at Ross Creek, Canning, Nova Scotia http://aworkofarteveryday.wordpress.com
2011
Nova Scotia College of Art and Design
- Xerox Canada Scholarship (multimedia)
- David Lanier 'Big Hat, No Cattle' Sculpture Scholarship
COLLECTIONS
Art Bank of Nova Scotia
Beau's Brewery, Vankleek Hill, Ontario
Concrete Contemporary/Waddington's Auction House, Toronto, Ontario
Torys LLP, Toronto
