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New Dorset prints explore life then and now

“That’s healthy for the evolution of the art form.”

JOHN THOMPSON

Windy Day, is a lithograph by Annie Pootoogook, part of this year’s offering of Cape Dorset prints. (COURTESY OF DORSET FINE ARTS)

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She wears a parka made from a floral print material, not fur – a telling detail that reminds you that Pootoogook’s work is grounded in life today, not life in the past.

Pootoogook is at the forefront of a younger generation of Cape Dorset artists who are pushing at the boundaries of what’s accepted as Inuit art. And her latest designs are just a small sample of a wide variety of prints unveiled in this year’s collection from Dorset’s renowned West Baffin Eskimo Co-op.

“It’s a real mix,” said Brian Lunger, curator of Iqaluit’s Nunatta Sunakku­taangit Museum, where the prints are on display until Dec. 4.

The collection does include more traditional prints of animals, including several designs of fish and loons by Kenojuak Ashevak, 80, who is perhaps the most famous Inuit graphic artist alive today.

But the split between modern and traditional approaches to print design doesn’t fall neatly between two generations, young and old.

Ohotaq Mikkigak, 70, contributed “Qamutaujaq,” a print of a snowmobile casting a long shadow, suggesting the machine’s powerful influence on life in the North.

“It’s not quite clear cut that way,” Lunger said. “That’s healthy for the evolution of the art form.”

It’s also a time of transition, Lunger said, with two elderly artists passing away this year.

One, Meelia Kelly, produced this year’s crowd pleaser, which has drawn the most comments from visitors to the museum so far: “Hoot,” a stylized graphic of 13 baby snow owls.

Kelly died this April, within days of the death of another Dorset printmaker, Mialia Jaw.

“This will be the last time any of their work will show up in the collection,” Lunger said.

Some prints in the Dorset collection are dark and unsettling – perhaps perfect for this time of year, with the approach of Halloween.

Take “Strange Ladies” by Pitaloosie Saila, which seems to perfectly captures the artist’s childhood experience of visiting Ontario and Quebec to be treated for tuberculosis. A socialite, a nun and a nurse stand together, staring with cold, impassive eyes – clearly, not a friendly bunch.

And Suvinai Ashoona contributes two bizarre and frightening images. The first, “Scary Dream,” shows a child cradled by two green monsters with big claws. The other, “Egg,” shows just that – which, when examined up close, is filled with ulus, hatchets, and other blades.

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