Itee Pootoogook
Stills

Drawings by Itee Pootoogook (1951–2014), an acclaimed artist from Kinngait, are easily recognized. His meticulous renderings of his world – the land, the buildings and the many figures and scenes that shaped his community are unique; subtly coloured and almost dream-like in their serenity. They have been exhibited and published widely, are found in major public and private collections and are sought by collectors. This group of drawings, based on black and white photographs, are very different in subject matter and style and provide an insight into the beginning of his artistic career.

Earlier in the 1970’s, Pootoogook used his own photographs to create a brief stop-frame sequence of colour snapshots, set to a minimalist piano track as part of an animation workshop. This animation offers a casual glimpse of everyday life in the community: young people playing music, wearing bell bottoms, and hanging out.  Much later, in the 1990’s Pootoogook became interested in drawing and took a course at Arctic College. His interest in working from photographs remained and he used these as the base for drawings, altering them by adding colour or slight variations in the compositions so that they became exquisite standalone artworks.

He often drew inspiration from the work of Peter Pitseolak (1902-1973), the Kinngait based hunter and artist who was the first Inuit photographer. Beginning in the 1940’s Pitseolak captured images of his family and people in his community, developing them himself with the help of his wife. Pootoogook admired his photographs; two of the works in this exhibition are based on early photographs by Pitseolak. Like him, Pootoogook was interested in capturing community life as he saw and experienced it. He utilized his own photographs, those taken by others, and even magazines as source material for his drawings.

In the mid-1990s, Pootoogook emerged as a trailblazer in portraiture, introducing a style and subject matter that was unique to him. These portrait drawings pull distant memories into the present, using gesture and subtle colours to enliven each scene—a signature trait of the artist’s work. Not only do they masterfully capture the essence of the sitter, but they also capture for posterity a single moment, whether the sitter is in motion or complete stillness.  Depicting the everyday life and faces in the North was neither considered popular nor marketable to Southern audiences at the time and many of these drawings were never released. In the following decade, Pootoogook would expand his source material, using images taken by studio manager Bill Ritchie or fellow artist Tim Pitsiulak.  While they move away from portraiture, they share the same concern with showing the community of Kinngait, the people, the settlement and the land. These images joined the early portraits as works of art that reveal a profound sensitivity and a deep connection to his community and environment.