Shuvinai Ashoona

1961 -

By turns uncanny, comical and disquieting, Shuvinai Ashoona’s idiosyncratic dream-like imagery erases the distinctions between the natural and spirit worlds, and between the real and imagined. Many of the artist’s images include fantastical monster-like creatures, while others portray people and planets orbited by a range of beings including fish and walruses. Ashoona’s drawings of tents and wooden structures positioned on rock strewn landscapes often provide glimpses of their interiors, transforming what might otherwise be mistaken for images belonging to ethnographic illustration into uncanny meditations on the fluid boundary between inside and outside. Known for her aerial perspectives and cropped compositions, Ashoona’s carefully executed drawings and prints are often marked by a filmic sensibility.

The daughter of the well-known sculptor Kiawak Ashoona and granddaughter of the late Pitseolak Ashoona, the great graphic artist, Shuvinai Ashoona was born in 1961 in Cape Dorset on Baffin Island. Her own career started in the mid-1990s when she began making drawings for the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative. Often startlingly different from other Cape Dorset graphic expression, Ashoona’s reputation as a contemporary Canadian artist has steadily grown over the years. Her works are included in several prominent institutional collections, including the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

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Hybridity: Françoise Oklaga & Shuvinai Ashoona

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Shuvinai Ashoona Wins Governor General’s Award

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Shuvinai Ashoona in Art Review

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Shuvinai Ashoona’s Solo Exhibition at The Perimeter: “When I Draw”

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Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory and Taqralik Partridge at the Canadian Centre for Architecture

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Shuvinai Ashoona at the Outsider Art Fair Paris

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Shuvinai Ashoona in Splendid Isolation at S.M.A.K.

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Shuvinai Ashoona is Featured in New York Times

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Shuvinai Ashoona Awarded Special Mention at the Venice Biennale

Shuvinai Ashoona has been awarded a special mention during the Awards Ceremony and Opening...

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Shuvinai Ashoona at ICA Miami

Drawings by Shuvinai Ashoona, R.C.A., are featured in a solo exhibition at the Institute...

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Shuvinai Ashoona Featured in Beyond the Visible at the AGO

Shuvinai Ashoona’s drawings are featured in Shuvinai Ashoona: Beyond the Visible, on view at the...

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Shuvinai Ashoona: Mapping Worlds Reviewed in Georgia Straight

Reviewed by Robin Laurence Shuvinai Ashoona is that most magical of artists, one whose...

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Shuvinai Ashoona at the Vancouver Art Gallery

In her first institutional exhibition on the West Coast, Shuvinai Ashoona: Mapping Worlds brings...

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Shuvinai Ashoona Featured in Àbadakone at the National Gallery of Canada

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Shuvinai Ashoona at the Power Plant

Shuvinai Ashoona is featured in a solo exhibition at The Power Plant in Toronto....

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Shuvinai Ashoona wins 2018 Gershon Iskowitz Prize

The Gershon Iskowitz Foundation, in partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario, has announced...

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Shuvinai Ashoona Featured in Border Crossings

Shuvinai Ashoona’s work is the subject of a feature article in the spring 2018...

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Shuvinai Ashoona: A For Sure World reviewed in Galleries West

In her review of Shuvinai Ashoona: A For Sure World for Galleries West, Beverly...

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Offsite Exhibition

Shuvinai Ashoona with John Noestheden at the 18th Biennale of Sydney

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Offsite Exhibition

Shuvinai Ashoona with John Noestheden at the MacKenzie Art Gallery

Shuvinai Ashoona is featured alongside John Noestheden in John Noestheden: Sky & Shuvinai Ashoona:...

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Offsite Exhibition

Shuvinai Ashoona at the Massachussets Museum of Contemporary Art

Shuvinai Ashoona is just one of 60 Canadian contemporary artists featured in Oh Canada...

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Shuvinai Ashoona in Hunter and Cook magazine

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Offsite Exhibition

Tony Anguhalluq, Shuvinai Ashoona, Itee Pootoogook, Kananginak Pootoogook, Nick Sikkuark and Oviloo Tunnillie in Inuit Modern at the Art Gallery of Ontario

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Surreal Reviewed in Canadian Art

Reviewed by Hadani Ditmars You walk out of Surreal: Eight Artists in the Fantastical...

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Offsite Exhibition

Shuvinai Ashoona at the Winnipeg Art Gallery

A selection of drawings and prints by Shuvinai Ashoona, together with images by Pudlo...

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Offsite Exhibition

Shuvinai Ashoona at the National Gallery of Canada

Shuvinai Ashoona will be featured in It Is What It Is, a special exhibition...

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Offsite Exhibition

Shuvinai Ashoona, Qavavau Manumie in The Drawing Room

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Shuvinai Ashoona: Drawings 1993-2007 Reviewed in Vancouver Sun

Reviewed by Lloyd Dykk Shuvinai Ashoona is reportedly an eccentric but sweet-natured person, given...

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