Born to Native parents and adopted by a German-American family, Brad Kahlhamer was raised in Arizona and Wisconsin, and spent his early adulthood as a musician living on the road before settling in New York City. Informed by this nomadic history, Kahlhamer’s work explores the particularities of the American landscape: the desert ecology of the Southwest, the parks and waterways of the upper Midwest, and the urban streets of the cities of the Northeast are all common source material within his works. His Dreamcatcher series draws on the form of a traditional Native American symbol of unity and identification, which over time has become commercialized and often appropriated. This choice invokes the complexity and multiplicity of cultural histories, as Kahlhamer examines the cultural hybridity of navigating multiple communities simultaneously, while addressing questions of representation of Native culture in the twenty-first century.
Born to Native parents and adopted by a German-American family, Brad Kahlhamer was raised in Arizona and Wisconsin, and spent his early adulthood as a musician living on the road before settling in New York City. Informed by this nomadic history, Kahlhamer’s work explores the particularities of the American landscape: the desert ecology of the Southwest, the parks and waterways of the upper Midwest, and the urban streets of the cities of the Northeast are all common source material within his works. His Dreamcatcher series draws on the form of a traditional Native American symbol of unity and identification, which over time has become commercialized and often appropriated. This choice invokes the complexity and multiplicity of cultural histories, as Kahlhamer examines the cultural hybridity of navigating multiple communities simultaneously, while addressing questions of representation of Native culture in the twenty-first century.
Born to Native parents and adopted by a German-American family, Brad Kahlhamer was raised in Arizona and Wisconsin, and spent his early adulthood as a musician living on the road before settling in New York City. Informed by this nomadic history, Kahlhamer’s work explores the particularities of the American landscape: the desert ecology of the Southwest, the parks and waterways of the upper Midwest, and the urban streets of the cities of the Northeast are all common source material within his works. His Dreamcatcher series draws on the form of a traditional Native American symbol of unity and identification, which over time has become commercialized and often appropriated. This choice invokes the complexity and multiplicity of cultural histories, as Kahlhamer examines the cultural hybridity of navigating multiple communities simultaneously, while addressing questions of representation of Native culture in the twenty-first century.
