Jay Pahre (Artist-in-Residence, 2021)

"Rattle"

 
copper wire woven sculpture on white background
"Rattle" copper-plated steel wire and aluminum wire woven through mesh gauze, to give the appearance of the end of a suche

NPS Photo

 

About the Artist

Sliding between drawing, sculpture, and writing, Jay Pahre’s focuses on the myriad ecologies present on the island of minong or isle royale, an island located in northwestern lake superior. Pulling from personal lived experience of walking the island, and its shifting geographies and ecologies, he pieces apart the moments when these different trajectories begin to fold in on themselves and open other ways of being, knowing, and moving. The uses of metal, electricity, and heat has been instrumental in his work to think through conductive and transforming ecologies. Leaning on these moments of conductivity and transformation, his work seeks to ferret out alternative formations and futures while slipping through moments of temporal, embodied, and environmental precarity.

Jay Pahre is an artist, writer and cultural worker currently based on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. Originally from the midwestern US, Pahre has turned his work back toward the shifting ecologies of the Great Lakes and Great Plains regions. He received his BFA in painting and BA in East Asian studies in 2014, and his MA in East Asian studies from the University of Illinois in 2017. He went on to complete his MFA in visual art at the University of British Columbia in 2020. His work has been exhibited across the US and Canada. He was selected for the Helen Belkin Memorial Scholarship (2020) and Fred Herzog Award in Visual Art (2019) at the University of British Columbia.

You can view more of Jay Pahre's work on the artist's personal webpage.

 

Last updated: February 14, 2025

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Mailing Address:

800 East Lakeshore Drive
Houghton, MI 49931

Phone:

906 482-0984

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