The fall 2018 issue of the Inuit Art Quarterly includes a review of Nick Sikkuark: A Celebration, the second of two posthumous exhibitions presented by MSG featuring the late Netsilik artist’s work. In the review, writer Marshall Webb discusses the combination of complexity and simplicity in Sikkuark’s singular graphic expression, highlighting its surreal dimensions. “The more time one spends with these works, the more they relay the artist’s particular focus on the entanglements between the natural and supernatural worlds,” he writes. Webb also draws attention to Sikkuark’s fascination with the forces of shamanism, in which the human and animal worlds are brought together, noting the prevalence of hidden imagery within many of the artist’s drawings. Webb concludes his review with a fundamental question: “Considering the breadth of work on display, how do we reconcile the tenderness of Sikkuark’s portraits with the ferocity of his grotesques or the quiet of some landscapes with the eruptions of fire and shamanic power? In light of the artist’s belief in the unity of these natural, supernatural and human forces, such questions require us to look closely for possible answers in Sikkuark’s complex world — and, in turn, our own.”
