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NoiseCat draws on the stories of his ancestors and contemporary issues pertaining to Indigenous peoples to create innovative images executed with extraordinary craftsmanship. He took the top prize at Portland’s first annual Indian Art Northwest market in 1998. He has won the Best of Show award at the 2008 Autry Museum Intertribal Art Market in L.A. with a glass and bronze totem called “Endangered”. Most recently Ed and his wife Jhane Myers NoiseCat won the Best of Show award at the 52nd Annual Heard Museum Guild Indian Market with a collaborative piece entitled “Coyote as Champion”. In the mid 90’s, He won a major Midwest public art commission with a four-foot high portrait mask honoring Little Crow, one of the region’s great chiefs.
NoiseCat grew up in British Columbia’s remote, mountainous interior with his mother’s people, the Canim Lake Band of Shuswap Indians. He draws inspiration from his mother’s plateau culture, and from his father’s people, the Stlitlimx, closer to the coast. NoiseCat graduated from the prestigious Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver, B.C., where he studied printmaking. In 1986 he moved to New York to work as a fine art lithographer at print shops including world-renowned Tyler Graphics. Ed has lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico since 2001.
NoiseCat thrives on exploring new ground and pushing the limits of his abilities. He is equally comfortable producing an elaborately carved totem, contemporary wood and glass furniture, an intricate bracelet, a cedar panel, or a laser-cut steel totem.
Raven is full of contradictions. As a trickster he is treacherous and greedy, yet he also has a keen sense of justice. According to one legend, he stole daylight from a selfish chief by transforming himself into a newborn baby. NoiseCat experiences contradictions in his own life and work. NoiseCat draws on traditional imagery and he most often relies on traditional carving tools and techniques, but his art is unquestionably contemporary. In his work, he strives to marry high art with high craft. His ancestors come from both the Plateau and the Coast. His birthplace is a rural Canadian reservation, but he feels equally at home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a strong, independent spirit, but he is also deeply committed to his family. Given the strong traditional role of art in Coastal cultures, NoiseCat's consistent innovation sets him apart. Coastal people have long decorated even the most utilitarian objects, like spoons, fish clubs and paddles, adhering to rules that determine the design and pattern for each object and ancestral group. A self-taught woodworker, even NoiseCat's early pieces pushed the boundaries of tradition. NoiseCat breaks the rules to break new ground. His work is a credit, not just a challenge to the artistic traditions of the Northwest Coast. Raised on a small reservation in British Columbia where culture had lost ground to the struggle for day-to-day survival, NoiseCat was always eager to explore the world, particularly his people's traditions. After graduating from the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver, British Columbia and moving to New York to produce lithographs at Tyler Graphics and others, he adopted his grandmother's maiden name "NoiseCat" and relenquished "Archie," the Christian name assigned to his family by missionaries. The skills and experience NoiseCat gained as a printmaker have shaped his style and given him the discipline required to resolve intricate carvings and build complex mechanical structures. With a distinctive vision and an incessant urge to innovate, NoiseCat has earned notoriety, accolades and collectors from coast to coast.
Jhane Meyers Noisecat and Ed won top prize, Best in Show, at the 52nd Annual Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market in 2010.
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