Itee Pootoogook
Itee Pootoogook’s images look primarily to contemporary northern life for their subject matter. Many of his works in graphite and coloured pencil depict modern local architectural forms, while his portraits of acquaintances and family members similarly bear witness to the North of today. Featuring a minimum of incident, these meticulously rendered images celebrate the mundane moments that make up the everyday. Pootoogook’s Arctic landscapes often make use of extended formats, giving emphasis to the open horizon that separates land from sky. Many of the artist’s drawings are based on photographs, an aspect of his artistic process that further highlights his contemporaneity.
Itee Pootoogook was born in 1951 in Kimmirut (formerly Lake Harbour) on southern Baffin Island, moving to Cape Dorset when he was still a child. The son of artists Ishuhungitok and Paulassie Pootoogook, he made his first drawings in the mid-1980s. Pootoogook resumed his interest in drawing in the late 1990s, and in the spring of 2008 one of his images was included in a special print folio devoted to the Cape Dorset’s rising new generation of artists. Between 2010 and 2013, a string of successful solo exhibitions in Vancouver and Toronto affirmed his place as an important contemporary Canadian artist. Pootoogook died in 2014.
Gallery Exhibitions
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Itee Pootoogook featured in career retrospective at McMichael Canadian Art Collection
The drawings of Itee Pootoogook are featured in an exhibition at the McMichael Canadian...
Itee Pootoogook and Tim Zuck at the MacLaren Art Centre
Slow Sight highlights the striking affinities in sensibility and style of artists Itee Pootoogook...
Tony Anguhalluq, Shuvinai Ashoona, Itee Pootoogook, Kananginak Pootoogook, Nick Sikkuark and Oviloo Tunnillie in Inuit Modern at the Art Gallery of Ontario
Works by Tony Anguhalluq, Shuvinai Ashoona, Itee Pootoogook, Kananginak Pootoogook, Nick Sikkuark and Oviloo...
