Lilli Carré

Carré was born and grew up in Los Angeles.[2] Her mother is a graphic designer and her father, who died when Carré was a teenager, was a designer and forensic animator.[2][3] 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".[4] 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.[2][3][5] While studying she also worked in the Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection.[5] 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.[5] She received her BFA from SAIC in 2006 and settled in Chicago where she currently lives and works.[6] Carré worked part-time at the Facets Multi-Media film library for several years, an experience she has said influenced her filmmaking.[2]

Her books of comics include Nine Ways to Disappear, The Lagoon,[7] and Tales of Woodsman Pete. An excerpt from The Lagoon was chosen to be included in The Best American Comics 2010[1] and "The Carnival" was nominated for Outstanding Story at the 2009 Ignatz Awards.[8] Carré's film How She Slept at Night screened at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.[9]

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.[10][11]

The commercial contemporary art gallery, Western Exhibitions, in Chicago, has represented Carré since 2012, and exhibits her work.[12]

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".[13] 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.[14]

• 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)

• 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.[15] The film was awarded first prize at the 2014 Punto y Raya Festival.[16]

2020 Artist in Residence, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE

2017 Best Film US Competition, GLAS Animation Festival

2016 Newcity Chicago, 2016 Breakout Artist

2015 Ignatz Award for online comic, The Bloody Footprint, created for the New York Times

Festival Special Guest, BilBOLBul Festival, Bologna Italy

2014 James Thurber House / Columbus Museum of Art Graphic Novelist in Residence

First Prize, Punto y Raya Festival, Center for Visual Music, Reykjavik Iceland

2013 Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize Honoree

Pierre Feuille Ciseaux #4, experimental comics residency, Minneapolis MN

Eisner Award Nominee for Best Short Story and Best Graphic Album

Harvey Award Nominee for Best Graphic Album Previously Published

Festival Special Guest, Helsinki Comics Festival, Helsinki Finland

Special Guest, Comics/Illustration/Animation conference at Dartmouth College

2012 Yaddo Artist Residency

Festival Special Guest, Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, NY

2011 Propeller Fund Grant, Administered by Gallery 400 & ThreeWalls, funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Best Experimental Film, The Light Factory Filmmaker's Showcase, Charlotte NC

Follett Fellowship, Center for Book and Paper Arts, Columbia College Chicago

2010 Festival Special Guest, Small Press Expo, Stockholm, Sweden

Artist In Residence, CSSSA Animation Program at CalArts

Artist In Residence, Spudnik Press, Chicago

2009 Best Emerging Artist, Chicago Reader

2008 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Story, The Thing About Madeline

2006 Fellowship Award, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Best Animation Award, Chicago Underground Film Festival

Fred A. Hillbruner Artists’ Book Fellowship Award Honorable Mention

2005 Scholarship for Research and Travel, endowed scholarship of the art history class Integrated Visions: 20th Century Art Environments

• Best American Comics 2006, 2008, and 2010, Houghton Mifflin

• Best American Nonrequired Reading 2010, Houghton Mifflin

• Western Exhibitions: Lilli Carré
• "Resume". Western Exhibitions. Archived from the original on 2013-09-30.
• Robert Kirby (15 May 2013). "Review - Heads or Tails". The Comics Journal.
• Thea Liberty Nichols (10 August 2011). "Lilli Carré: Rhythm and Written Sound". Art21 Magazine.
• Lilli Carré's Tippy and the Night Parade