BIO
Jay Pahre is a queer and trans settler artist, writer, and cultural worker currently based on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. His work engages trans and queer ecologies, interspecies collaboration, and place in the context of settler colonialism. He has attended residencies at the Western Front, Banff Centre, and Isle Royale National Park. His work has been exhibited across the US and Canada at traditional galleries and community spaces, and his writing has been published in academic journals and comic anthologies. 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.
For an updated CV, please contact him.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Sliding between drawing, sculpture, and writing, Jay Pahre’s work examines transness and queerness where they rub up against the nonhuman. Recently, this has been navigated with a focus 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, shifting geographies, and queer/trans 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 of what queer and trans ecologies of being might look like while slipping through moments of temporal, embodied, and environmental precarity.
Jay Pahre is a queer and trans settler artist, writer, and cultural worker currently based on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. His work engages trans and queer ecologies, interspecies collaboration, and place in the context of settler colonialism. He has attended residencies at the Western Front, Banff Centre, and Isle Royale National Park. His work has been exhibited across the US and Canada at traditional galleries and community spaces, and his writing has been published in academic journals and comic anthologies. 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.
For an updated CV, please contact him.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Sliding between drawing, sculpture, and writing, Jay Pahre’s work examines transness and queerness where they rub up against the nonhuman. Recently, this has been navigated with a focus 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, shifting geographies, and queer/trans 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 of what queer and trans ecologies of being might look like while slipping through moments of temporal, embodied, and environmental precarity.