Contemporary Drawing in Kinngait, 1995–2015 Drawing holds a long history at the Kinngait Studios. For many artists it served as their introduction to artmaking, as graphite pencil and paper were among the first media available to in the late 1950s and early 1960s. While drawings were purchased by the co-op, they were seldom marketed for sale and prints dominated the … Read More
Themes in Inuit Art: Migration
The theme of migratory camp life, when hunters and their families would follow the animals with the seasons, comprises many images in Inuit art. Migratory and semi-migratory hunting camps were a way of life for Inuit living in the Canadian Arctic up until the mid-twentieth century when many began to move into permanent settlement communities. Today, camping during the spring, … Read More
The Lithograph
What do Shuvinai Ashoona’s Tentacles (2018), Ningiukulu Teevee’s Stepping Out (2020), and Ooloosie Saila’s Festive Owl (2021), have in common? They are all lithographs—a largely popular, yet little understood method of printmaking. The art of lithography made a late arrival to the Kinngait Studios as printers began experiments in the early 1970s. In 1975, lithographs made their debut in the … Read More
The Co-op: Drawings from Cape Dorset
The Co-op is a group exhibition of drawings by the Cape Dorset artists celebrating 60 years of the Kinngait Studios. Commonly referred to as the Co-op (as part of the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative), the studios have been intimately involved in the lives of the Cape Dorset artists since 1959. They are also the longest continuously running printmaking studios in … Read More
Pitseolak Ashoona: The Pictures
The occasion of the book launch for the revised edition of Pitseolak: Pictures Out of My Life provides the perfect opportunity to revisit the oeuvre of one of the most talented, and beloved, of contemporary Inuit artists. Born in 1907/8, Pitseolak Ashoona’s experience of life was similar to many of those of her generation. Her earlier lifestyle in the traditional … Read More
Cross-Currents: Cape Dorset in the 1960s
(Digitized catalogue below) Foreword by Terry Ryan My recollections of Cape Dorset during the notable decade of the 1960s unlike the frenetic sixties here in the Southern Hemisphere, was of a place only slowly awakening from a long period of relative tranquility. Our Federal Government of that time had only recently shown an expressed interest in things north of 60 … Read More