Tahir Carl Karmali

A curve cut from the grid, 2020
Screenprint (ink) on cotton paper
22 x 30 inches

A tracing along a diagonal ridge, 2020
Screenprint (ink) on cotton paper
22 x 30 inches

A landscape between hard surfaces, 2020
Screenprint (ink) on cotton paper
22 x 30 inches

Made during Karmali’s residency at LES Printshop, these three prints are part of a larger body of work. They are satellite images of composited refugee camps and abandoned settlements due to climate change in South Sudan and Kenya.

Tahir Carl Karmali (b. 1987, Nairobi) is an artist based in Brooklyn since 2014. His work spans photography, installation, papermaking, sculpture, and sound. Thematically his work deals with concepts that surround labor, neo-colonialism, and mortality. Karmali’s work was on exhibition at The Shed, New York in August 2019, was the subject of a solo exhibition at STRONGROOM, Newburgh, NY, and was a part of Second Careers: Two Tributaries in African Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, November 2020 –March 2021. His work has previously been exhibited at LKB Gallery, Hamburg and Copenhagen; Circle Art Agency, Nairobi; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Kunsthal Rotterdam; and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, among others. Karmali was awarded a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and a recent resident at The Watermill Center (2020). He was previously an Artist-in-Residence at Triangle Arts Association, Pioneer Works, Trestle Gallery, the MacDowell Colony, and BRIC. He is an Adjunct Professor of Design and Sculpture at Brooklyn College.