Siassie Kenneally, MY DAD GOING CARIBOU HUNTING, 2016, Coloured pencil, 23 x 30 in.

Like her cousins, Annie Pootoogook and Shuvinai Ashoona, Siassie Kenneally comes from a distinguished line of Cape Dorset artists.   Granddaughter of Pitseolak Ashoona and daughter of sculptor Qaqaq Ashoona, Siassie was also influenced by her mother, Mayureak Ashoona whose drawings and sculptures celebrated family and traditional life.   As so many of her generation living in Cape Dorset, Siassie spent most of her early childhood at her father’s camp at Saaturittuq, outside of Cape Dorset.

The artist is motivated to detail all aspects of both her traditional and her contemporary life.  She does this in confident contemporary drawings in which her memories are captured in dazzling colour, bold design and extreme detail.  Subjects such as sewing with her mother, preparing food for country feasts, hunting and gathering food, taking part in games and feasts resonate with energy, an energy born from both happy memories and intense observation.

‘All the Things in This World that I have seen is’ the keystone for the drawings in this exhibition.  Drawn immediately after the death of her son, it references, in a large circle, all of the things she can remember from her life, divided into cohesive sections.  These tiny images range from her family bible to John Lennon’s glasses, Charlie Chaplin and the logo of the Cape Dorset Co-operative drawn by her grandmother.   Each part of the circle is separated and given a category, from our ‘Traditional clothing’ to ‘Things that came from the south’ which includes TV, Players tobacco, Carnation milk, and Tim Horton’s.   This is the overview while the individual drawings in this exhibition provide the details.

To view available artwork by Siassie Kenneally, click here.