Canadian artist David Carlin was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada but has lived in the Nipissing District of Northern Ontario for almost 50 years. 

He maintains a studio in the city of North Bay on the north shore of Lake Nipissing, which is part of an ancient and historically important North American water route.  It is an inspirational place of myths, islands, northern winds and sun-danced waves, a place that sits under countless stars and the ancestral dancing of northern lights.  

Between 1963 and 1967, Carlin studied human anatomy at the University of Toronto; Buddhism and Calligraphy under the Japanese master, Kazuaki Tanahashi and graduated, with honours, from the Ontario College of Art, Drawing and Painting Department. From 1967 to 1968 he studied mural in Cuernavaca, Mexico.