CV
Solo Exhibitions
2025 forthcoming: Pasalubong, Project Space Pilipinas, Lucban, Philippines2021 Entropical Latitudes, Mata Art Gallery, Los Angeles, California
2016 Cosmic Rivulet, The Luminary, St. Louis, Missouri*
2015 California Consciousness, Alter Space, San Francisco, California*
2014 California Nightmare, State of the Art, Berlin, Germany*
2013 Rich Evidence, Horse and Pony Fine Arts, Berlin, Germany*
2010 The Pixie Troll Witch Hour: Into the 3 A.M. Void, Here, San Francisco*
Group Exhibitions
2024 Moved/Displaced, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, California2023 Streams of Waste, The Grey Space in the Middle, The Hague, The Netherlands
2023 Under the Same Sun, Edge on the Square, San Francisco, California
2023 A World of Islands, Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston upon Thames, London, UK
2022 HITHERTO VI: Notes on Impermanence, Project Space Pilipinas, Lucban, Philippines
2022 Rinconcito Tropical, El Centro del Conocimiento Migrante, Portland
2022 The Riddle of Materials, Galleria Duemila, Manila, Philippines
2022 bad budz, Adjunct Positions, Los Angeles, California
2022 a line and a long gaze, Phase Gallery, Los Angeles, California
2022 Kapwa: Communal Spirit, Avenue 50 Gallery, Los Angeles, California
2022 Polar Opposites, D21, Leipzig, Germany (Three-Person Collaborative Exhibition)
2022 Ecosystem X, Mozaik Philanthropy, Los Angeles, California
2021 Stampede, Horse & Pony, Berlin, Germany
2020 Switch, Kaiser Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio
2020 home, Acogedor Space, Los Angeles, California
2020 Superdomestic, AsukalSpace, Online Exhibition
2019 Araw ng mga Patay, Avenue 50 Gallery, Los Angeles, California
2015 Glitch Cult, Essex Flowers, New York, New York*
2015 Friendship & Freedom, MASS Gallery, Austin, Texas*
2014 These Streams, ACRE TV, Chicago, Illinois*
2013 Science Fictions, Warschau, Berlin, Germany
2013 Translocura: Art at the Brink of Madness, Headlands Center for the Arts, Marin, California*
2012 Not Free Not Dead: The Psychedelic End, ATA, San Francisco, California*
2012 Interpanel Relationships: A Spatial Discussion, S.H.E.D. Projects, Oakland, California*
2011 Reformation, Somerset County Jail, Skowhegan, Maine*
2011 Nightmare City Copy Lake The Horde, screening, Bei-Roy, Berlin, Germany*
2010 All that is Solid Melts Into Air, Queen’s Nails Projects, San Francisco, California*
2010 ATA Film & Video Festival, ATA, San Francisco, California*
2010 VOX VI, Vox Populi, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania*
2010 T-10, 21Grand, Oakland, California*
2010 A Light at the End of the Tunnel, Scope Basel Cinema, Basel, Switzerland*
2009 Mash Up Show, NOMA Gallery, San Francisco, California*
2009 D.U.I., Maniac, Oakland, California*
2008 30 Under 30, Varnish, San Francisco, California
2008 Disembody (in collaboration with 23E Studios), Fringe Exhibitions, Los Angeles, California*
2006 Friends of the Arts, 222 Club, San Francisco, California
2006 Bad Art for Bad People, CCA MFA Exhibition, San Francisco, California
Selected Bibliography
2024 Hoffman, Susan: “Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Alumni Exhibition now at OCCCA,” LA Times2022 Buchet-Déak, Elisabeth: “Hope and Beauty on the Edge of Collapse,” Mozaik E-Zine
2022 Interview, “Antipodal World Making: Following the Blue Plastic Thread” Human Nature Magazine, D21 Kunstraum
2022 Exhibition Catalog, “Future Art Awards: Ecosystem X,” Mozaik Philanthropy
2021 Suico-Soriano, Irene: "Target 2°C,” Exhibition Catalog, Mata Art Gallery
2015 Tedford, Matthew Harrison: “The Photic Wave is a Cult You’ll Want to Join,” SF Weekly*
2015 Puleo, Risa: “Friendship & Freedom,” Modern Painters*
2015 Anani, Katie: “Critics’ Pick: Friendship and Freedom,” Artforum*
2010 Gannon, Victoria: “Going to California: Nightmare City,” Art:21*
2009 Ritchie, Andy: “A Breathalyzer of Fresh Air,” ArtSlant*
Talks, Panel, Workshops and Other Experience
2024 Fellow, “Ecologies of Flourishing,” Puón Institute, San Fernando, La Union, Philippines2023 Artist Talk and Workshop, “Where is the Middle of the Sea,” Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston University, London, U.K
2023 Artist Talk, “alterlife: material entanglement + ongoing becoming,” Emerging Islands, San Juan, La Union, Philippines
2023 Resource Speaker, “Kaalam sa Hinabing Banig: Ecology, Traditions, Transformations, and Diaspora,” Visayas State University, Baybay, Leyte, Philippines
2022 Resident Artist Talk, Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, Otis, Oregon
2022 Guest Lecturer - Advanced Sculpture: Trace/Time/Terrain, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Illinois
2022 Co-Curator and Moderator, 2 x 2 Talks, D21 Kunstraum, Leipzig, Germany
2022 Artist Talk, D21 Kunstraum, Leipzig, Germany
2021 Guest Lecturer - History of Digital Media, CCA, San Francisco, California
2021 Artist Talk, Mata Art Gallery, Los Angeles, California
2013 Co-Curator, Not Free Not Dead: The Psychedelic End Screening, Horse & Pony, Berlin, Germany
Residencies
2025 forthcoming: Neo-Emerging Artist Residency (NEAR) Lucban, Project Space Pilipinas, Lucban, Philippines 2023 The Burren College of Art, Co. Clare, Ireland
2023 Cill Rialaig, Ballinskelligs, Co. Kerry, Ireland
2023 Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston University, London, UK
2023 Emerging Islands, San Juan, La Union, Philippines
2022 Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, Otis, Oregon
2022 Cowhouse Studios, Ballybawn, Co. Wexford, Ireland
2021 The Burren College of Art, Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare, Ireland
2016 The Luminary, St. Louis, Missouri*
2015 Jail Cell AIR at Alter Space, San Francisco, California*
2012 Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, Berlin, Germany*
2012 Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont*
2011 Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine*
2010 ACRE, Steuben, Wisconsin*
Awards & Honors
2023 Fellow, Individual Artist Fellowship, California Arts Council2023 Semi-Finalist & Alternate, Fulbright Open Research Fellowship
2022 Grantee, Arts Council Ireland, Agility Award
2022 Grantee, The Puffin Foundation, Visual Arts Grant
2022 Finalist, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Visual Arts Grant
2021 Grantee, Mozaik Philanthropy, Future Art Award: Ecosystem X
2005 Grantee, Graduate Fellowship, Sculpture Department, California College of the Arts
2004 Grantee, Graduate Fellowship, Sculpture Department, California College of the Arts
2004 Recipient, Outstanding Senior Award, Sculpture Dept, UIUC School of Art + Design
2003 Recipient, Merit Scholarship, Sculpture Department, UIUC School of Art + Design
2002 Recipient, Merit Scholarship, Sculpture Department, UIUC School of Art + Design
Published Writing
2023 “something meant for you when you welcome me back: translocal material entanglement across a global arkipelago,” A World of Islands: On Palms, Storms & Coconuts, Stanley Picker Gallery2022 “Gimme Shelter: Changing Contexts of Banig Weaving in a Changing Climate,” Rare Earth, D21 Kunstraum
2021 "Entropical Latitudes," Exhibition Catalog, Mata Art Gallery
2019 “Entropical Latitudes,” Poetry Collection, Hexahedra Press
2015 “Faunic Witches Floral Bitches,” Nightmare City Publications*
2012 “Fuzzy Logic,” Nightmare City Publications in collaboration with Sarrita Hunn*
2011 “Sssux to be Usss,” Nightmare City Publications*
2009 “Big Time: Nightmare City Thinks You Suck,” Nightmare City Publications*
Education
2006 MFA Sculpture; California College of the Arts, San Francisco2004 BFA Sculpture & Women’s and Gender Studies; University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
*denotes as collaborative duo Nightmare City
| Carol Anne McChrystal’s sculptures have been exhibited in Los Angeles at Mata Gallery, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, and Adjunct Positions, and internationally at Galleria Duemila (Manila), Horse & Pony (Berlin) and Stanley Picker Gallery (London). McChrystal earned her MFA from California College of the Arts and she has participated in numerous residency programs, including Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (US), Sitka Center for Art & Ecology (US), Emerging Islands (PH) and Cill Rialaig (IE). She has received grants from the Puffin Foundation, California Arts Council and Arts Council Ireland. In 2021 she received the Ecosystem X Award from Mozaik Foundation in recognition of artists using contemporary art for social change and in 2024 she was a Puón Institute Fellow at “Ecologies of Flourishing,” a collaborative workshop focused on creative social survival and ecological sustainability in a time of global planetary crisis. |
As part of the collaborative duo Nightmare City (2008-2016), she created immersive environments that were exhibited at Alter Space in San Francisco, The Luminary in St. Louis, and Horse & Pony in Berlin among others, and showed video works at Essex Flowers in New York, MASS Gallery in Austin, and ACRETV in Chicago. Their work has been written about in publications such as ArtForum and Modern Painters.
Inspired by my own family migration story, my recent materially-driven works take the form of plaited mats traditionally made from local plant fibers in my two island homelands of Ireland and the Philippine archipelago. In these works, discarded plastic waste—a product of oil extraction—and locally gathered organic materials are processed and hand-woven into the forms of traditional mats. Influenced by time spent in familial homelands witnessing the role that globalized industry plays in the dissolution of cultural practices, I use material and method hand in hand to explore how the climate crisis has compounded certain inequitable legacies of colonialism. Seeking to expand connections between diasporic communities in the US and homeland, I also engage with mat weaving traditions as a barometer for how the climate crisis is transforming constructs of “nature” and “the natural.” My self-taught process of mat-weaving reflects on how traditions necessarily transform in diasporic communities, a result of how migration can separate subsequent generations from the old ways of being with the Land. By inhabiting the tension between Earth’s immense history and the absurdly mundane everyday experience of plastic, I consolidate painstakingly hand-made techniques with mass-produced consumables in order to pry open a speculative space of resistance to the destructive means-ends mentality of late capitalism. I use archipelagic thinking, fluidity and relationality within my art objects to consider the conceptual connections between diaspora, political agency, and deep geologic time—a meditation on how extractive industry and climate catastrophe are irrevocably entwined with local experiences of home and shelter. Ultimately, my engagement with material culture in my visual arts practice is focused on cultivating the possibility for imagining anti-colonial global futures—one that’s in step with ancestral knowledge, yet situated in the reality of the material conditions of contemporary life.