The Fort Gansevoort Art Gallery in NYC has an online presentation Voices from Kinngait running until April 26. The Exhibit features eight newer Inuit artists from Kinngait (Cape Dorset): Saimaiyu Akesuk, Josie Pootoogook, Pitsiulaq Qimirpik, Ooloosie Saila, Nicotye Samayualie, Padloo Samayualie, Alasuaq Sharky, and Ningiukulu Teevee.
“This dynamic selection of drawings showcases a new wave of contemporary Inuit artists who are reconfiguring and critically examining their positions in relation to history, traditional media, and narrative figuration. While never fully divorced from the formal influences of older generations, these eight artists’ varying aesthetic modes and proclivity for experimentation are expanding the horizons of established artmaking practices in their community. Filled with double-speak and winking referentiality, the works of these artists reflect contemporary Inuit culture from multivalent perspectives. By embracing personal expression and defying expectations of common pictorial motifs, their artmaking is boldly redefining Inuit cultural production in relation to the global contemporary art world.”
“Beluga hunting in the spring. The hunter missed the beluga and the bullet is bouncing across the water. The two people are pulling in the beluga they caught.” –Ooloosie Saila