Catalysts, Helpers, Tricksters: Birds in Contemporary Inuit Art

The Marion Scott Gallery, is pleased to present an exhibition exploring the use of bird imagery by Inuit artists.  Catalysts, Helpers, Tricksters: Birds in Contemporary Inuit Art feature 25 works from different northern Canadian communities produced across the last six decades. Included in the colourful spring show are sculptures, drawings, prints and wall hangings. Some of northern Canada’s best-known artists are represented, including Kananginak Pootoogook, Parr, Jessie Oonark, Janet Kigusiuq, Kenojuak Ashevak, Jamesee Pitseolak, Sheojuk Etidlooie and Elisapee Ishulutaq.

The use of bird imagery is one of the most notable features of contemporary Inuit art. Many of the best known and most recognizable images in Inuit art feature birds as their principal subjects, reflecting the important role that these creatures play within traditional and modern Inuit culture.

The exhibition contains images of several different species of birds that are native to the Arctic. Kananginak Pootoogook’s carefully rendered and dramatically composed pen and coloured pencil study of a black guillemot in flight exemplifies the realistic approach for which the artist is well known. No less delicate is Qavavau Manumie’s patterned drawing of an inverted diving loon, a turning fish clutched in its beak. In contrast to these representational renderings, Sheojuk Etidlooie’s stately lithograph, titled  Bird in Winter Night, features the highly abstracted form of a ptarmigan set against an evocative black background. Lucy Qinnuayuak’s playfully stylized forms express the exuberant behavior of birds in the Arctic, as in her pencil crayon drawing of a whimsical green owl flanked by two black ravens.

Several works in the exhibition attest to the central role that birds have played in Inuit culture. Tikitu Qinnuayuak’s graphite and ink drawing of a hunter with a bow and arrow taking aim at a group of geese recalls the latter’s importance as a food source for humans. Other images express the spiritual significance of birds. Geela Sowdluapik’s oilstick drawing of a grave scene beneath a starry sky includes a shaman in a trance with an owl and raven perched on his shoulders, a reference to Inuit beliefs about the role of birds as spirit helpers. Equally otherworldly is Myra Kukiiyaut’s stencil prints featuring the overlapping fantastical silhouettes of three primordial birds in flight. A pair of stonecut and stencil prints by Irene Avaalaaqiaq feature birds with human faces, expressing Inuit spiritual ideas about the unity of human and non-human life.