David Altmejd is one of the most accomplished Canadian artists of our time. He has represented Canada in the Venice Biennale and has been celebrated in several major retrospectives, including in Paris, Luxembourg, Montreal, and Amersfoort, among others.

In the tradition of iconic artists like Louise Bourgeois and Francis Bacon, Altmejd conjures images and objects from the depths of an uncanny and often frightening, subconscious realm.

“A perfect object for me is something that is extremely seductive and extremely repulsive at the same time,” says Altmejd.

His most haunting, and most sought-after, objects are his human heads. “Some artists make drawings,” Altmejd told Art21 in 2011, “I make heads. It’s just a way... to experiment combining colors and materials.”

The heads are made in conjunction with larger installations. When Altmejd works on a show, he takes the materials that are used in the other pieces and lets them guide him through an intuitive process. Processes and materials are his primary concerns while making the heads, as he strives to create an object that will go on to be a generator of meaning in the minds of viewers.

Untitled (2011) was created for Altmejd’s show at Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York in 2011. The piece was installed on the floor in a corner of the installation. Although this work may be reminiscent of a memento mori, or reminder of death, the artist perceives it to be regenerative—a platform for life and growth—as evidenced by the presence of materials such as crystals and hair. Immense possibilities are contained within these quasi-magical heads, a fact Altmejd believes is partly due to their scale.

“I think its really the perfect size,” he says. “I like the idea that the universe was the size of a head just before the big bang, you know?”

Altmejd’s work is in numerous public collections, including those of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Art Gallery of Ontario; Dallas Museum of Art; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Toulouse Long Museum, Shanghai; Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal; Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris; Musée d’art moderne Grand-Duc Jean (MUDAM), Luxembourg; Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal; Musée des beaux-arts du Québec; Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium.