Written by Beverly Cramp
Niap, an Inuit artist from Northern Quebec, readies herself for a performance. Barefoot and clad in black leggings and a black shirt, she focuses on a large black-and-white photograph on the wall of the Marion Scott Gallery, where her first solo show in Vancouver, Reclamation and De-Categorization, is on view until Dec. 21.
Some 20 people have gathered to watch Niap’s 15-minute performance. The sound of recorded wind fills the gallery, then stark piano music and throat singing, and, eventually, women talking, snow crunching underfoot, and poetry in Inuktitut, the traditional language in Nunavik, the homeland of the Quebec Inuit, where Niap was born and raised.
She runs one hand along the austere photograph of a northern landscape, then steps back to squeeze neon paint onto paper plates. Dipping her brush into water and then the magenta paint, she sweeps opaque colour along the curve of a snow-covered mountain and runs her hands through the brushstroke.
Read the full article, written by Beverly Cramp, in Galleries West
