Reviewed by Hadani Ditmars
You walk out of Surreal: Eight Artists in the Fantastical Tradition not only with a different perception of what constitutes “Inuit Art,” but also with a changed worldview.
After a few hours of absorbing the work, familar urban landscapes shape-shift and shamanic visions and arctic imagery still swirl around you.
The fusion of the animal and the human, and the intimate connection between man and his environment, stay with you long after the viewing of the 28 works-mainly drawings, but also including prints and sculptures. In the wake of the Vancouver Art Gallery’s recent exhibition on surrealism, “The Colour of My Dreams,” it is intriguing to take in an Inuit alternative. But it is in the link between the visible and the invisible worlds, rather than in any conscious incorporation of Western style, that this work is “surreal.”
