Inuit Pop

April 23 – May 16

Our late April profile brings together eight Inuit prints, each reflecting an innovative approach to a classic medium. The images presented in Inuit Pop combine Inuit traditions and spiritual beliefs with bold means of expression and strong colour. The artists express their radical sensibilities in different ways. Haunak Mikkigak’s electrifying stonecut print of an owl pressing forward through space, its fearsome talons ready to ensnare its unseen prey, is a powerful and dramatic contemporary image. Many of the works in the profile are lithographs—a modern style of printmaking that not only recreates the artists’ drawn linework but also permits the rendering of careful detail. Qavavau Manumie’s exciting lithograph, appropriately entitled “Wild World,” is just that: a swirling constellation of northern motifs and abstract forms circling and drifting around a single seeing eye framed within a rectangle. Shuvinai Ashoona’s classic image, Scary Dream, also a lithograph, features a man who is either being attacked or embraced by a pair of monsters with clawed and webbed appendages, reflecting the artist’s singular comic sensibility. Less humorous but equally striking is Arnaqu Ashevak’s masterful large print portraying a woman in a caribou skin parka with caribou legs gesturing to the stars in the Arctic night sky.

The profile includes works by Arnaqu Ashevak, Mayoreak Ashoona, Shuvinai Ashoona, Qavavau Manumie, Haunak Mikkigak, Ulayu Pingwartok and Tom Tatannak.