Carl Trahan
Carl Trahan is a visual artist from Quebec whose practice includes drawing, painting, and photography, as well as text-based works and olfactory art. His work explores historical moments, philosophical concepts, and literary and theoretical writings that conceal or reveal a darker side. In recent years, he has thus focused on the idea of night, particularly in relation to dark mysticism and cosmic pessimism. By prioritizing the content of the works he creates, the artist draws upon various disciplines and selects those that best convey the concepts he wishes to communicate. A common thread runs through this multidisciplinary approach: the almost exclusive use of black, which not only evokes darkness but also calls forth the light that is reflected in it or lost within it.
Based in Montreal, Carl Trahan has been exhibiting since the mid-1990s in various galleries and artist-run centers in Canada, Europe, and Cuba, as well as in institutions such as the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ), the Musée d’art de Joliette, the Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides, the MacKenzie Art Gallery, and the Grantham Foundation. In 2016, he was awarded the MNBAQ Contemporary Art Award. He has participated in residencies in Helsinki, Paris, Rome, and Berlin—where he lived for nearly eight years—among other places. [Source: VOX, 2026]
