Carl E. Hazlewood was born in 1951, Guyana, South America. He received a BFA with honors from Pratt Institute, and an MA from Hunter College, CUNY. Hazlewood uses the structural language of abstraction as a clarifying act of progress in what he considers an unstable world. His approach to his work and life seeks to counter the insinuation that there may be limitations on what he should do or what he can achieve. Hazlewood strives for an art and life of open possibilities, for a poetic presentness beyond time, place, race and other distracting polemics. Along with his studio practice, Hazlewood co-founded Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art in Newark, NJ in 1983.
He has been a recipient of various awards and fellowships including the Yaddo & MacDowell Fellow. Brown Foundation Fellow-Dora Maar House, France; Bogliasco Foundation, Italy. He was selected as the National Academician 2025-USA. His solo exhibitions include Infinite Passage at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (2025), BlackHead Anansi: Constellations at Wake Forest University (2023), and BlackHead Lyricism at Welancora Gallery (2022). His work has also been exhibited at Skoto Gallery and is held in the collections of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.