Artist

Jacob A. Meders

Jacob A. Meders (Mechoopda/Maidu), is an Assistant Professor in the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts & Science at Arizona State University. In 2011, Jacob established WarBird Press, a fine art printmaking studio that he operates as the Master Printmaker in Phoenix.

Meder’s work focuses on altered perceptions of place, culture, and identity built on the assimilation and homogenization of Indigenous people. This work often ties into current issues faced in Indigenous communities. His work continues to reexamine varied documentations of Native Americans through printing processes that hold onto stereotypical ideas and how they have affected the culture of Native people. Often using book forms and prints as a symbol of Western knowledge and the linear mind, Meders deploys them as a vehicle to challenge new perceptions of Native Americans. His work touches many interdisciplinary approaches and repeatedly plays with the boundaries of social engagement practices

Meders guest curated and exhibited his work in Mǝǝmento: Before at the Janet Turner Print Museum, California State University, Chico, alongside a solo exhibition, Askum Belle: Afterwards at the Jacki Headley University Gallery, California State University, Chico, in 2019. He has also exhibited work in Divided Lines at The Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, NM, Agents of Change: An Exhibition of Artist’ Books with a Social Conscience in Gallery 31 at the Corcoran, Washington D.C., Something Old, Something New: Nothing Borrowed Recent Acquisitions from the Heard Museum Collection at The Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ, Transcending Traditions at Mesa Contemporary Arts in Mesa, AZ,  First Americans: Honoring Indigenous Resilience and Creativity at Museum Volkenkunde, Leiden, Netherlands, and Mini Wiconi Goldsmith, University of London. His work is also collected by major universities and other institutions in the United States and internationally.