Profile: Early Drawings by Ningiukulu Teevee

Marion Scott Gallery is pleased to present an online profile of early drawings by Kinngait’s Ningiukulu Teevee. Shortlisted for the 2023 Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Award, Teevee is recognized as a leading and prolific figure in contemporary Inuit art and graphic production. The series of compositions presented here reflect the artist’s interest in ornamental and decorative motifs, largely drawn from nature and the environment. Many feature twisting vines and meticulously rendered flora and fauna, which form layered, swirling, and almost hypnotic patterns on the page. Others serve as subtle landscape studies, with particular attention paid to the detailed depiction of the rocks, stones, and minerals that form the Arctic tundra and its coastlines.

Done in black fibre-tip pen, the collection consists mainly of black and white works. Only one composition includes coloured pencil– a two-paneled drawing which juxtaposes three slices of coral-coloured Arctic char with a rocky, mountainous shoreline dominated by bright yellow, orange, and light purple shaded lichen. Arctic animals, Teevee’s speciality, are also featured as part of her process of pattern-making. In one drawing made up of dozens of tightly packed, small circles, closer looking reveals an owl’s face in the center of each circle. Another drawing depicts a school of silhouetted fish, caught in a stone weir between two opposing river banks, forming an irregular, oblong shape in the center of the composition. The most didactic work in the collection is Teevee’s depiction of a despondent polar bear confined behind bars at the Toronto Zoo, hanging its head below a neat urban skyline which includes the CN Tower alongside gridded skyscrapers, a lone tree, and an airplane.

Replete with the intensely detailed linework and patterning that has established Teevee as an central figure and voice within the field of contemporary Inuit graphic art, this selection provides a glimpse into the acclaimed artist’s earlier works and the progression of her unique, highly celebrated vision.