James Jack (artist)

Jack worked with residents on the island of Molokai to respectfully open a window with local pigments and stories that recenter islands in the Pacific according to local protocols for community collaboration in the solo exhibition Molokai Window held at Honolulu Museum of Art in 2018 curated by Healoha Johnston supported by the inaugural artist-in-residence program at Molokai Arts Center.

Jack's artworks engaging with social and ecological environments have been included in numerous exhibitions including: Honolulu Museum of Art (2018); Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (2017); Fukuoka Prefectural Museum of Art (2016); Setouchi International Art Festival (2013 and 2016); Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art (2015); Institute of Contemporary Art Singapore (2014); Busan Biennale Sea Art Festival (2013); and the Echigo-Tsumari Triennial (2009). The exhibit Inundation: Art and Climate Change is moved from Honolulu (January–March 2020) to the Island of Hawai‘i (July–October 2020) and continues to grow into publications, exhibits and .

Sea Birth trilogy is composed of sea spirits, love amidst violence and rebirth. Sea Birth one was exhibited at Museum of the Sky in 2016, Sea Birth two was exhibited at Ichihanari Art Festival in Okinawa during 2018 and Sea Birth three at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Art Gallery and Donkey Mill Art Center in 2020. Selections from the work have also been screened at Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, BARRAK alternative art space Okinawa and Asia Research Institute at National University of Singapore.

Jack is one of the founding members of the artist collective World Dirt Association that began in 2014 with Yoshitaka Nanjo and Shotaro Yoshino based on their love of earth. WDA exhibitions and projects include the “Land and Water Festival” Niigata 2015, SYP Projects 2015, Ichihara Art x Mix 2017 and Social Art Lab Yame Remix. Upcoming projects include a performative work based on local residents’ stories of dirt “Soilstory” to be presented at Suzu 2020 Okunoto Triennale that is currently postponed to 2021.

Jack created a community artwork titled Sunset House: The House as Language of Being for the Setouchi Triennale (2013/2016) in the former site of a clubhouse for stone quarry workers on the island of Shodo.

Jack was a Crown Prince Akihito Scholar pursuing artistic research in Tokyo from 2008 to 2010. He was a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral Artist Fellow at Social Art Lab at Kyushu University from 2016 to 2017 and taught Art Practice at Yale-NUS College in Singapore from 2018-2022 while directing the Artist-in-Residence program and is currently Associate Professor of Intermedia Art at Waseda University.

Jack was raised on the East side of Manhattan, lived in Kyoto during the late 1990s and has lived in Asia Pacific for the past two decades. Jack received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College studying with Gary Burnley, Sandy Skoglund, and Joel Sternfeld and completed advanced studies in Japanese at the Stanford Inter-University Center for Japanese Studies. He completed a Master of Arts degree in Japanese Art History at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and a Ph.D. in the Painting Department with Yoshitaka Mōri, Tsuyoshi Ozawa, Ritsuko Taho and Toyomi Hoshina at Tokyo University of the Arts.

James Jack (ジェームズ ジャック, born 1979) is a contemporary artist based in Singapore.