Carl Jara

I’ve seen and made some pretty cool sand sculptures in my eighteen years but none of them compare to what Carl Jara does with this popular material. Carl takes a simple medium and brings it close to high art sculpting with marble. Many of Carl’s works seem to defy gravity in that they don’t look like they should be standing. Much of Carl’s work is very abstract. What I really appreciate about his sand art is that he represents the human form in a manner that you’d think he started out with a solid block of stone. the sad thing about working with this material is that it’s form is beautiful for now but not permanent. just like everyone else’s sand castles, his too will be washed away.

Carl Jara, 2008

This piece is very interesting in that it illustrates Carl's mastery of the human form in a manner that he can represent it abstractly while making the outermost figure realistic. Proportion and posture aren't sacrificed even though one would think it would have to be considering the material. most people can't make a sandcastle half that height but Carl manages to pull it off while making the shape really appealing.

"We Can't All Be Angels" Carl Jara, 2005

This piece has a lot of very well-done aspects about it. Not only are the feathers and hair of the angel way better than one would think sand could pull off but he also manages to create a very smooth skin texture that complements it very nicely. I also think that compositionally, this couldn't get much better. "There's only so much you can do with sand" is broken by this and many of Carl's other works.