Carlos Little’s work disrupts our historical and narrative associations. We see disparate recognizable characters yet we have a sense that these characters spring largely from his imagination. What seems strange at first turns out to be uncannily familiar. Little’s work is well informed. It displays a human inventiveness gone awry; it is at once marvelous in its variety and playfully engaging in its intention.

Seeped in history Carlos Little addresses the idea of portrait as subject, as negotiation, between the artist his materials and theory ” There is no such thing as trash, the notion that we can just throw things away – is a false comfort, for as things are discarded they never fully disappear they are simply displaced.”

“The characters in my work are everyone I have every met, read about, watched on TV, or viewed in films—up until the time I make the piece. This is what gives the characters specificity.” Little’s‘ charterers are an amalgamation of individuals that have passed through Carlos Little’s life. They are part of the universal stream of consciousness, a shadow, an imprint, a whisper of what was, an expression not fully conscious…what remains, more often than not that is what ultimately ends up on canvas, paper or as sculpture.

The materiality of Carlos Little’s work is derived from salvaging and scarifying his studio. Carlos Little sculpts by combining found materials into larger than life-sized sculptural works. His sculptures are made from unconventional, industrial materials – Styrofoam and polyurethane foam insulation with a color palette of baby blue and pink, sheetrock, broom handles, wood joists, discarded alcohol bottles, anything and everything you might find in an abandoned building or construction site. Once complete Little sets about marking his creations by use of word, line and symbol, with exuberant, colorful panache.

Known for work that reflects upon the paradox of contemporary urban culture. Little’s work questions the on-going duality of waste and excess, demolition and construction in the face of the ever changing urban landscape. Carlos Little maintains, “Trash does not exist. We live in a closed-loop system. You can’t delete stuff like you would delete text on a computer, it has to go somewhere.” At the same time Carlos Little’s sculptures embody and maintain an underlying sense of humor and humanism.