Shuvinai Ashoona’s work is the subject of a feature article in the spring 2018 edition of Border Crossings. In the article, entitled “Vision Quest: A Sunday Afternoon with Shuvinai Ashoona,” Vancouver-based art critic Robin Laurence offers a personal impression of the artist and her distinctive graphic expression.
Noting the range of motifs in Ashoona’s drawings, Laurence draws attention to the artist’s reliance on a multiplicity of sources. “Some images and motifs, Shuvinai plainly states, are inspired by popular culture, by things she has seen on television or encountered in comic books,” Laurence writes. “During our conversation, she cited Superman, Spiderman and Edward Scissorhands as readily as she did Sedna, the female spirit who, in Inuit belief, dwells at the bottom of the sea.” Laurence also speculates on the origins of Ashoona’s frequent employment of aerial and semi-aerial perspectives, suggesting a possible connection to plane travel in the North. “Yet, this aerial view, especially when associated with her fantastical landscapes, could also be suggestive of shamanic flight, the out-of-body experiences described in vision quests, or the hallucinatory state of psychosis.”
Laurence’s article is based on a meeting with the artist that took place at the Marion Scott Gallery in October 2017 following the opening of Shuvinai Ashoona: A For Sure World.
