Artist Connor Willumsen Portrait Photo

2024

Total Screen Time

Curated by Adam Bartholl, Socrates Stamatatos and Theo Triantafyllidis
@ Ithakis 28 Kypseli-Athens

Nov 21 2024

Group show and one-night exhibition exclusively on phones.

2024

Feral Metaverse

Work by Theo Triantafyllidis for "Group Hug" at WSA NY through Oasis ONX

from Sept 26
to Nov 20

A continued collaboration with artist Theo Triantafyllidis' videogame/performance/sculpture "Feral Metaverse" for which I participated in development with writing and conceptual art. For this show I also contributed designs for the tapestries, writing and storyboarding for the promotional video, and the poster illustration.

2024

Group Hug

Poster for GROUP HUG Exhibition @ WSA NY depicting “Feral Metaverse” by Theo Triantafyllidis

On view
Sept 26 - Nov 17
2024

"Onassis ONX is pleased to announce Group Hug, a landmark exhibition of large-scale, site-specific video game installations. Presented with Water Street Projects in collaboration with curators Julia Kaganskiy, Serpentine Arts Technologies, and Rhizome, the exhibition invites visitors to play together and lose themselves in the sensorial worlds of each game through sight, sound, and touch."


2023

Big H

Breakdown Press

148 x 210mm
28 pages

A selection of sketchbook illustrations by Connor Willumsen, from his recent time in Greece.

2023

Feral Metaverse

Colaberation with Theo Triantafyllidis
at
Galerie Nagel Draxler Berlin

On view
April 29 - Sept 2
2023

In 2023 I collaborated with Theo Triantafyllidis on concepts for his videogame project "Feral Metaverse". The game debuted at Galerie Nagel Draxler, Berlin, where my original concept drawings were on display

2023

Bradley à Bradley

Éditions çà et là

8.5" x 11"
120 pages

"Bradley à Bradley est un véritable tour de force. L’auteur canadien virtuose Connor Willumsen montre une impressionnante maîtrise graphique, dans une histoire mêlant réalité et imaginaire avec en toile de fond Las Vegas, symbole d’une société en trompe l’œil dévorée par le consumérisme, la fascination pour les célébrités et l’ultra capitalisme."

2023

Big H

Breakdown Press

148 x 210mm
28 pages

A selection of sketchbook illustrations by Connor Willumsen, from his recent time in Greece.

2022

The Nominal Scale

McSweeny's #69

5.25" x 8"
8 pages

2022

Bitter Little Cup

Fumetti Comic Featured in
Sex Magazine #13

8 pages

Writing, Layout & Story:
Connor Willumsen
Direction & Photography:
Fatine-Violette Sabiri
Styling:
Shahan Assadourian
Casting:
Michèle Arismandez
Makeup:
Carole Méthot
Models:
Pleure, Henri, Boudah & Caroline


2022

Gray Green

Ongoing Web Comic since spring 2022

New strip 3 times each week.



2017

Anti-Gone

Koyama Press

LA Times Book Prize
Best Graphic Novel (Nominated)
Ignatz Awards
Outstandng Book (Nominated)
Doug Wright Awards
Best Book (Nominated)

8.5" x 11"
120 pages

Anti-Gone is a vague and expansive ocean world in which every comfort is availabe to those willing to kill their time searching for it - a book designed to chart an outline around the invisible territory that gratification excludes.


"Readers who enjoy the boundary-pushing work of cartoonists such as Dash Shaw and Olivier Schrauwen will freely surrender to Willumsen's equally dreamlike world."
- Publishers Weekly



"Connor Willumsen is a blackbelt of formalism in comics. There is an unending sense of "thinking" in this book. Every angle and every option is considered."
- Caleb Orecchio, Comics Workbook



"From beginning to end, Willumsen pushes you in the deep end and forces you to tread over adroit uncertainty, using water as a stand-in for not only the fragile nature of nostalgia and relationships, but your very own mind. Anti-Gone is about all these things. At least I think so."
- RJ Casey, The Comics Journal



"Connor Willumsen's first graphic novel, Anti-Gone, beautifully follows a couple who drift on a small boat and go see a movie on drugs. It felt to me a bit like a Tao Lin novel in that it focuses on young people who spend their time shopping for clothes and entertainment/drugs."
- Dash Shaw, The Comics Journal



"Willumsen's [Anti-Gone] might be the indie house's crowning glory."
- Abraham Riesman, Vulture



"Illustrated with a virtuoso command of pose and movement, with imaginative and surreal flourishes throughout, Anti-Gone is one of the year's most impressive releases."
- Gosh! Comics



"With beautiful line art, Willumsen tells one of the oddest stories of the year, but also one of the most visually compelling and formally striking."
- Shea Hennum, The A.V. Club



"You get an odd combination of super contemporary, minimalist, and economical cartooning - the sort of artistic sensibility you expect from a young author, but with a maturity of voice suggesting a master playwright or screenwriter."
- Peter Birkemoe, Quill & Quire



"Willumsen's fantasy involves two tourists, Spyda and Lynxa, who explore an island that turns into a futuristic city or an apocalyptic nightmare depending on what drugs they’re taking."
- Heidi MacDonald, The Comics Beat



"Willumsen's book demands that you spend time looking at it from multiple angles, then trusts you to make up your own mind."
- Ryan Carey, Daily Grindhouse



"Anti-Gone is likely one of the strongest long-form formalist comics published this year. Willumsen's pages made me gasp, and flinch, and read and re-read, and re-read."
- Alex Hoffman, Sequential State



"Book of the year for me, and probably an absolute game-changer for a generation of cartoonists about to emerge"
- Brian Nicholson, Are Comics Even Good



2019

Bradley of Him

Koyama Press (ENGLISH ED)
Alpha Decay (SPANISH ED)
Éditions çà et là (FRENCH ED)

Doug Wright Awards
Best Book (Nominated)

8.5" x 11"
80 pages

The runner believed life was a linear mechanical process of perpetual momentum endured in activewear, and the impersonator saw it as self-actualizing power struggle for identity and a quest for gold. Burdened by their own success and an aimless desire, they embark on an odyssey that takes them from the cavernous buffet halls of the near future Las Vegas strip, and into the a scorched earth stretched out before them.



"Connor doesn't just show celebrity for what it is (an unread contract, hastily signed); he doggedly pursues its terms and repercussions into a familiar, shifting zone of comic unreality, a psychic space more intuited than defined. Improbably, Bradley of Him finds the whole world in fame and its ubiquitous cosigners--a book as sensitive and sweeping in its observations as it is sly."
- George Elkind (contributing writer, The Comics Journal and Detroit Metro Times)



"A masterpiece. With a virtuosic hand that positions cartooning in all its various modes—as design, as symbol, as representation—Willumsen burrows into the psychic torture of the self amid the entitlement and narcissism of a culturally bereft Las Vegas. It ripples outward, to the limits of the American ethos that anything wanted—intellectually, spiritually, physically—can be grabbed with both hands if desired, and to the acute melancholic madness of our intense yearnings."
— Sammy Harkham (cartoonist-editor, Kramers Ergot, Crickets)


"One way or another, Willumsen always finds a way to translate his extraordinary imagination into imagery that not only catches, but fully absorbs, the attention of the reader, and that’s no mean feat considering the sheer size, scale, and scope of his ambition. Like his protagonist, he’s forever pushing himself — he never stops running ... Bradley Of Him is a book that you’ll want to obtain immediately, and one that will probably be much-discussed come our own end-of-year “awards season” in comics as many of us will be in the midst of our fifth or sixth re-read of it at that point, and picking up something new from it each time."
- Ryan Carey, Solrad


"The morphing story line is perfectly matched by Willumsen’s precisely modulated pencil drawings that shift effortlessly from confident minimalism to detailed landscapes. This artful, ambiguous character study will both challenge and fascinate adventurous art comics readers."
- Publishers Weekly


"Willumsen is an expert draftsman and designer, presenting pages that swirl with action and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny dialog as scenes segue into one another with an often dreamlike quality ... Willumsen pokes fun at the vapidity of celebrity culture and seems interested in satirizing a particularly American sense of entitlement, but ultimately he obscures whatever point he has in mind in favor of remaining willfully, and fascinatingly, perplexing."
- Thomas L. Batten, Library Journal


"From the image of a stubborn runner in an inhospitable landscape, Willumsen has built up a hilarious and philosophically challenging meditation on individuality, capitalism, celebrity, connection — and, under it all, absurdity."
- Etelka Lehoczky, NPR


"Bradley of Him is as much a Challenging Work as any Willumsen, an avant-garde comic that uses its author's incredible skill to attempt maneuvers which would completely derail a project by a lesser talent. It's manifestly the work of a genius, but one whose delights beg consideration more than enjoyment. It's really, really weird. If you're not down for that, it runs right past you."
- Matt Seneca, The Comics Journal


"Bradley of Him feels like a new cult classic, an addition to the lexicon of modern outsider storytellers and haunted urban dreamers. It’s densely packed with exchanges, inventories, people. It’s Nevada, your choices are crowds and air conditioning or nobody and the baking sun. Willumsen loads each page. Figures appear over and over, a phénakisticope of myriad angles, a hundred bees locked into a honeycomb with largely invisible edges. Willumsen has mostly done away with drawing panel borders. The art is held behind walls that aren’t there, contained by where the panel should end, phantom gutters."
- Arpad Okay, The BEat


" Bradley of Him delivers an engagingly idiosyncratic visual approach that challenges comics conventions while still providing the pleasures of a vividly told visual tale."
- Chris Gavaler, Pop Matters


2020

My Grandma Was My Bounty

featured in EX. Mag #1
Peow Studios

6.5" x 8.25"
18/192 Pages
Edited by Wren McDonald

A genre-based comics anthology: Cyberpunk. Featuring comics by Freddy Carrasco, Sophia Foster-Dimino, Kelly K, Giannis Milonogiannis, Mushbuh, Jonathan Djob Nkondo & Tonči Zonjić. Cover by Freddy Carrasco.

2019

Europe

Featured in Kramers Ergot 10
Fantagraphics Books

Eisner Award
Best Anthology (Nominated)

11" x 14"
13/168 pages
Edited by Sammy Harkham

Curated by cartoonist Sammy Harkham, KE10 features work by R. Crumb, Dash Shaw, David Collier, Anouk Ricard, C.F., Jason Murphy, Blutch, Shary Flenniken, Johnny Ryan, John Pham, Ron Regé Jr., Simon Hanselmann, Anna Haifisch, Ivan Brunetti, David Amram, Helge Reumann, Frank King, Steve Weissman, Aisha Franz, Leon Sadler, Adam Buttrick, Archer Prewitt, Connor Willumsen, Bendik Kaltenborn, Will Sweeney, Rick Altergott, Kim Deitch, Marc Bell, and Harkham himself.

2020

I Needed the Discounts

Full Page Tabloid Comic
The New York Times

Eisner Award
Best Short Story (Nominated)

Art Directed by Nathan Huang

"I Needed The Discounts" is a full tabloid sized comic printed in the January 5th 2020 edition of The New York Times as part of "The Privacy Project", a section of original art and writting covering the subject of tech and privacy. A web version was also made available on nytimes.com.

2021

Hype Pup

Ongoing Monthly Comic Feature since 2021

A full tabloid comic that appears monthly in Frank Santoro's Hype Pup zine.

2012

Treasure Island Part 1

Breakdown Press

2014

Swinespritzen

Self Published

Doug Wright Awards
Best Micro-Published Book

2024

Quantum Supercomputer

The New York Times

AD Vinnie Neuberg

2024

Group Hug

Poster for GROUP HUG Exhibition @ WSA NY depicting “Feral Metaverse” by Theo Triantafyllidis

On view
Sept 26 - Nov 17
2024

"Onassis ONX is pleased to announce Group Hug, a landmark exhibition of large-scale, site-specific video game installations. Presented with Water Street Projects in collaboration with curators Julia Kaganskiy, Serpentine Arts Technologies, and Rhizome, the exhibition invites visitors to play together and lose themselves in the sensorial worlds of each game through sight, sound, and touch."


2022

2022

2022

2022

2022

2022

2022

Faults

Yellow Veil Pictures

Blu Ray Cover
for Riley Stearns
2014 film

2020

Album Art

(unused)

2020

Tough Age:
Which Way Am I?

Album Jacket Design

2019

Punctured Sky

In Collaboration with Jon Rafman

2019

Mikey & Nicky

The Criterion Collection

Illustration and Packaging Design in Collaboration with Art Director Eric Skillman

2014

Scanners

The Criterion Collection

Illustration and Packaging Design in Collaboration with Art Director Eric Skillman



2017

Cinema 1999

Silkscreen Poster Series

11" x 17"
with Adam Abouaccar

Cinema1999 is a 35mm film screening series produced and conceived by Adam Abouaccar and presented at Bar Le Ritz in Montreal, QC. For each screening I prodcued a limited edition silk screen print.

2019

Balenciaga
"The Ride Never Ends"
for Jon Rafman Studios

Concept Art

2012

The Killing

The Criterion Collection

Illustration and Packaging Design in Collaboration with Art Director Eric Skillman

2024

Total Screen Time

Curated by Adam Bartholl, Socrates Stamatatos and Theo Triantafyllidis
@ Ithakis 28 Kypseli-Athens

Nov 21 2024

Group show and one-night exhibition exclusively on phones.

2023

Feral Metaverse Concept Art

Theo Triantafyllidis
exhibition at
Galerie Nagel Draxler Berlin

On view
April 29 - Sept 2
2023

In 2023 I collaborated with Theo Triantafyllidis on concepts for his videogame project "Feral Metaverse". The game debuted at Galerie Nagel Draxler, Berlin, where my original concept drawings were on display

2020

Anti-Gone

a Mixed Reality Play by
Theo Triantafyllidis

Sundance Film Festival
New Frontier Official Selection

"Anti-Gone is a new mixed reality performance by inspired the comic book of the same name by Connor Willumsen. Anti-Gone incorporates live performance with real time simulation to explore the social impacts of technology, privilege and the beginnings and ends of worlds."



In the midst of uncertainty, Anti-Gone is offering a soothing experience with a critical view on the privilege of escape.

More Info: http://slimetech.org/anti-gone/

Credits
Director: Theo Triantafyllidis
Writer: Connor Willumsen
Production Manager: Polina Miliou
Key Collaborator: Matthew Doyle

Performance Team
Cast: Lindsey Normington, Zana Gankhuyag, Matthew Doyle, Sam Congdon
Composer and Live Music Performance: Cameron Stallones
Sound: Jeffrey Alan Scudder
Game Engine Performer: Theo Triantafyllidis
Motion Capture and Movement Coach: Rachel Ho

Game Engine Team
Lead Artist: Theo Triantafylldis
Lead Programmer: Stalgia Grigg
Lead 3D Character Designer: Joseph Melhuish
3D Artists: Sara Drake, Ryan Decker, Siyao Zheng

Commissioned and Produced by Onassis Culture

Motion Capture technology provided by Noitom MoCap.

Special thanks to:
Sundance New Frontier
The Breeder Gallery
Meredith Rosen Gallery
Human Resources Los Angeles
UCLA Design Media Arts

2021

Video Chat Portraits

Virtual Residency & Exhibition
at The Phi Center Montreal Through June 15

"As part of Parallel Lines, Connor Willumsen’s project consists of live portrait sessions over video chat with other home-ridden individuals from around the world. His drawings are made simply and directly, allowing him to only draw what he can see on screen. Bizarre glitches, visual artifacts, and low resolutions are incorporated into the drawing process, resulting in a somewhat deformed but accurate depiction of a video chat."

2021

Riptides of the Mind

Multimedia Video
17th Venice Architecture Biennale Italian Virtual Pavilion

In collaboration with New School Policy and Design for Outer Space

In collaboration with other artists and writers, this is a video in which each produces a short segment. Mine is a collection of free-form digital drawings rendered with out of date early 3D sofrware over decomposed sound effects.

2015

It's Two If He Had The New That's What

Solo Exhibition & 3 Books

Wanusay Gallery, Montreal

2020

The New York Times

Illustration

"Bill Gates, at Odds With Trump on Virus, Becomes a Right-Wing Target"
By Daisuke Wakabayashi, Davey Alba and Marc Tracy
Art Directed by Molly Bedford

2014

Scanners

The Criterion Collection

2022

Robinson's Garden

Kani Releasing

Poster & Blu Ray Cover
for Masashi Yamamotos
1987 film

2022

What's Up Connection?

Kani Releasing

Poster & Blu Ray Cover
for Masashi Yamamotos
1990 film

2019

The New York Times

Illustration

"Racists Are Recruiting. Watch Your White Sons."
by Joanna Schroeder
Art Directed by Nathan Huang

2022

Lace Crater Film

Home Release Cover Art

Film by Harrison Atkins

2021

The New Yorker Magazine

Illustration

"The Deletion Prompts."
Fiction by David Means
Art Directed by Rina Kushner

2022

Don't Let The Angels Fall

Canadian International Pictures

Blu Ray Cover
for George Kaczender's
1969 film

2022

The New York Times

Illustration

"One Year Under Taliban Rule"
Portraits for Sunday Opinion
Art Directed by Damien Saatdjian

2016

Portraits

Published by Comics Workbook

8.5 x 11"
16 Pages
ed. of 500
Layout Design by Caleb Orecchio

2014

Sunset People

Featured in Study Group 3D

2014

Treasure Island Part 2

Breakdown Press

2016

Treasure Island Part 3

Breakdown Press

2018

Soon All Your Memories Will be with Me

Poster Design

Solo Exhibition by Lisa Lipton

2019

Anti-Gone: A Mixed Reality Play

Poster / Pamphlet Design

2017

The Globe and Mail

Illustration

"Age of Consent" by Rachel Giese
Art Directed by Bryan Gee

2022

Bloomberg Digital

Illustrations

Art Directed by Steph Davidson

2018

The Spa

Featured in FreakerUNLTD5
Ddoogg press

2015

The Walrus

Spot Illustrations

Art Directed by Paul Kim

2014

When Damo Met Can

Red Bull Music Academy Japan

3 Pages

Written by Zack Soto
Art Directed by Marc Weidenbaum

2012

Mooncalf

Featured In Descant #164

10 Pages

2012

Passionfruit

Dog City Press

16 Pages

2012

Untold Tales of Punisher Max #2

Marvel Comics

Written by Jason Latour
Colored by James Campbell
Edited by Nick Lowe

Connor Willumsen is a cartoonist, writer, and visual artist whose work spans from mainstream comics to experimental theatre. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Kramers Ergot, and The Best American Comics anthology, and has been published by Marvel and DC Comics, Breakdown Press, Koyama Press, Éditions çà et là, and Casterman. Willumsen’s graphic novels Anti-Gone (2017) and Bradley of Him (2019) have earned critical acclaim and nominations for the LA Times Book Prize, Eisner, and Ignatz Awards. Anti-Gone was adapted into a play showcased at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, and a recent French translation of Bradley of Him was featured on Arte France and in The Walrus for its uncanny foresight into Bradley Cooper’s career.

Breakdown Press / Bloomberg / Casterman / The Criterion Collection / DC Comics / Éditions çà et là / Galerie Nagel Draxler / The Globe and Mail / GQ / Image Comics / Koyama Press / The New York Times / Marvel Comics / McSweeny's Moleskine / The New Yorker Magazine / Nike / Novembre Magazine / Phi Center / Pop Montreal / Redbull Music Academy / Sex Mag / Sharjah Biennial 14 / Slate / Sled Island / The Walrus / Warner Brothers / Vice / Zeit

BOOKS

ILLUSTRATION / DESIGN

2024
  • Illustration

  • Bloomberg
2023
  • Illustration

  • Bloomberg
2021
  • Illustration

    Full Page + 4 Spots
  • The Globe and Mail
2021
  • Illustration

  • Bloomberg Green
2020
  • Illustration

    Op Ed "Women in White Supremacy"
  • The New York Times
2015
  • Illustration

    Cover & Spots
  • Zeit Campus
2014
  • Criterion Designs

    Featured In
  • The Criterion Collection

EXHIBITION

2023
  • Bradley à Bradley

    Rencontre/Déballage - Exhibition/Lecture
  • Festival Formula Bula, Paris
2023
  • Bradley à Bradley Exhibition

    Original Art Exhibition & Signing
  • Librairie Super Héros, Paris
2021
  • Parallel Lines

    Group Exhibition
  • Phi Center
2019
  • Punctured Sky

    In Collaboration with Jon Rafman
  • Sharjah Biennial
2019
  • This is Serious: Canadian Indie Comics

    Group Exhibition
  • Art Gallery of Hamilton
2016
  • CCS: Ten Years of Fellowship

    Group Exhibition
  • Society of Illustrators
2016
  • Blue Line

    Group Show
  • The Southern Alberta Art Gallery
2015
  • Words and Pictures: Ten Years of CCS

    Group Exhibition
  • Turchin Center for the Visual Arts
2015
  • The Work of Connor Willumsen

    Solo
  • HQ Gallery
2011
  • Bad Summer

    Solo
  • Pop Montreal
2010
  • Neointegrity

    Group Exhibition
  • Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
2008-9
  • Sketchbook Display

    Moleskin
  • London World's Book Fair

SPEAKING/EDUCATION

2023
  • Mentor

    MFA in Visual Narrative
  • School of Visual Arts, New York
2022
-24
  • Instructor

    Dynamic Drawing
  • Syn Studios
2023
  • Bradley à Bradley

    Rencontre/Déballage - Exhibition/Lecture
  • Festival Formula Bula, Paris
2020
  • Visiting Artist

    Lecture & Workshop for Art X
  • Concordia University
2020
  • Visiting Artist

    Artist Presentation
  • Fashion Institute of Technology
2020
  • Visiting Artist

    Lecture
  • Center for Cartoon Studies
2016
  • Workshop

    With Comics Workbook
  • Lakes Festival
2015
  • Visiting Artist

    Lecture & Workshop
  • Color Gang Comics
2015
  • Residency

  • Wanusay Gallery
2015
  • Fellowship

    1 Year
  • Center for Cartoon Studies
2015
  • Lecture

    Visiting Artist Series
  • Center for Cartoon Studies
2012
  • Residency

  • Inside Out Museum Beijing
2012
  • Lecture

    Speaking Seris: "The Art of Survival"
  • Concordia University / Art Matters

PRESS

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