INDIGENOUS CONTEMPORARY ART

Ohotaq Mikkigak | Qamutaujaq (Snowmobile). 2006

I enjoy doing colourful drawings, of people, animals, birds and especially the landscape. I used to enjoy hunting on the land, so that’s what I draw. I’ve done a few drawings of shamans, although I’ve never seen one. They are stories, true stories, told by my grandmother. -Ohotaq Mikkigak

Ohotaq was born in 1936 and lived in Cape Dorset with his wife Qaunak, who is a carver and traditional throat-singer. Ohotaq began drawing in the early years of the print program in Cape Dorset, and his print, Eskimo Fox Trapper, was released in 1961. He became less involved with drawing as the community grew, working full time instead for various community agencies. After his retirement from his job as caretaker of the Peter Pitseolak School in Cape Dorset, Ohotaq resumed his interest in drawing. We were pleased to include three of his prints in the 40th anniversary collection released in 1999 and he was represent in every subsequent collection until his death in 2014. In the later years Ohotaq was a daily fixture at the table in the Kinngait Studios, working on drawings covering a wide range of themes and subjects, including an illustrated life history.

Ohotaq had his first solo exhibition of prints and drawings in 2010, and in 2012 a number of his large scale drawings were exhibited in a highly acclaimed show alongside Venerable Canadian artist Jack Bush at the Justina M Barnicke Gallery at the University of Toronto.

Pitseolak Ashoona | Woman Hiding From Spirit. 1968

Pitseolak Ashoona’s drawings and designs were a feature of the beginnings of Kinngait print making, and her subject matter reflects the concerns of that early period. Born in 1904, she grew up with a family life of subsistence living, and, following the death of her husband, moved to Kinngait with several of her seventeen children to seek out an income. Her prints tend to omit signs of contemporary life and the south, as most early Kinngait work did, thus appealing to audiences seeking images of a timeless and pristine Arctic life. Ashoona often lingers on the spiritual as well as the stories and ways of life of previous generations. In “Woman Hiding from Spirit” (1968) the negative form of a female figure lays in front of a bear-like spirit that does not seem to see her. Sprouting from the spirit’s head are antlers and birds who fight over berries; the woman is nearly face to face with one such bird — speaking to the closeness of the human and spiritual worlds in the North.

Read more on Pitseolak Ashoona, Napachie Pootoogook, and Annie Pootoogook’s contribution to the art world and how these three generation of artists formed the way the world sees Inuit life and culture.  https://hyperallergic.com/397997/a-family-of-artists-creates-a-portrait-of-inuk-life-across-three-generations/

Tim Pitsiulak | Diving Walrus. Stonecut. 2014