Shuvinai Ashoona (born August 1961Shuvinai Ashoona
at Dorset Fine Arts) is an Inuk artist who works primarily in drawing.Feheley Fine Arts
Shuvinai Ashoona
Retrieved 8 March 2015 She is known for her detailed pen and pencil drawings depicting northern landscapes and contemporary Inuit life.

Biography

Ashoona was born in 1961 in

Cape Dorset Kinngait (Inuktitut meaning "high mountain" or "where the hills are"; Syllabics: ᑭᙵᐃᑦ), formerly known as Cape Dorset until 27 February 2020, is an Inuit hamlet located on Dorset Island near Foxe Peninsula at the southern tip of Baf ...

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...

, now Kinngait,

Nunavut Nunavut ( , ; iu, ᓄᓇᕗᑦ , ; ) is the largest and northernmost territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the '' Nunavut Act'' and the '' Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act'' ...

, to a family of celebrated artists. Her father

Kiugak Ashoona Kiugak Ashoona (September 16, 1933 – 2014; also known as Kiawak; Inuktitut syllabics ᑭᐅᒐᒃ ᐊᓲᓇ) was a Canadian Inuk artist renowned for his sculptural work and his expansive artistic portfolio. He experienced the longest career o ...

was a sculptor, her mother Sorosilooto Ashoona was a graphic-artist and her grandmother

Pitseolak Ashoona Pitseolak Ashoona ( – May 28, 1983;) was an Inuk Canadian artist admired for her prolific body of work. She was also a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Biography Pitseolak was born to Timungiak and Oootochie on Nottingham Isla ...

was one of the most acclaimed Inuit artists of her generation. She is also related to artists

Napachie Pootoogook Napachie Pootoogook (June 26, 1938 – December 18, 2002) was a Canadian Inuit graphic artist. Life and family Napachie Pootoogook is the only daughter of acclaimed artist Pitseolak Ashoona. She was born in the Sarruq Island camp near south Ba ...

, her aunt, and

Annie Pootoogook Annie Pootoogook (May 11, 1969 – September 19, 2016) was a Canadian Inuk artist known for her pen and coloured pencil drawings. In her art, Pootoogook often portrayed the experiences of those in her community of Kinngait (then known in English ...

, her cousin, with whom she was selected to participate in the 2012

Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is a museum in a converted Arnold Print Works factory building complex located in North Adams, Massachusetts. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing ...

, '' Oh, Canada'' a showcase of contemporary Canadian artists curated by Denise Markonish and held at the

. Ashoona attended high school in

Iqaluit Iqaluit ( ; , ; ) is the capital of the Canadian territory of Nunavut, its largest community, and its only city. It was known as Frobisher Bay from 1942 to 1987, after the large bay on the coast on which the city is situated. In 1987, its t ...

, but soon returned to the Kinngait region with her daughter, living with her family at outposts like Luna Bay and

Kangiqsualujjuaq Kangiqsualujjuaq (; ) is an Inuit village located at the mouth of the George River on the east coast of Ungava Bay in Nunavik, Quebec, Canada. Its population was 956 as of the 2021 census. Names The settlement's original name, Fort Severi ...

. This experience informs her detailed, animate drawings of Inuit Nunangat. The Ashoona family returned to Kingait in the late 1980s, and Shuvinai began visiting Kinngait Studios. There her artistic style was influenced by her aunts and fellow studio members Napachie Pootoogook and Mayoreak Ashoona, as well as

Kenojuak Ashevak Kenojuak Ashevak, (Inuktitut: ᕿᓐᓄᐊᔪᐊᖅ ᐋᓯᕙᒃ, Qinnuajuaq Aasivak), (October 3, 1927 – January 8, 2013) is celebrated as a leading figure of modern Inuit art. Early life and family Kenojuak Ashevak was born in an igloo ...

Artistic career

Ashoona's drawings are sometimes rooted in nature, but other times drawn from imagination, creating a claustrophobic, dense effect on paper. Recurring images include the egg shape; the

kudlik The qulliq (seal-oil, blubber or soapstone lamp, iu, ᖁᓪᓕᖅ, ''kudlik'' ; ik, naniq), is the traditional oil lamp used by Arctic peoples, including the Inuit, the Chukchi and the Yupik peoples. This characteristic type of oil lam ...

, a stone oil lamp; and the

ulu An ulu ( iu, ᐅᓗ, plural: ''uluit'', 'woman's knife') is an all-purpose knife traditionally used by Inuit, Iñupiat, Yupik, and Aleut women. It is utilized in applications as diverse as skinning and cleaning animals, cutting a child's hai ...

; historical images or events occasionally appear, like the ''Nascopie'', a supply ship which brought goods and people to

until its sinking in 1947.Time Interrupted exhibition catalogue, 4–25 November 2006. Toronto: Feheley Fine Arts, 2006. Setting Ashoona's work apart from the

Inuit art Inuit art, also known as Eskimo art, refers to artwork produced by Inuit, that is, the people of the Arctic previously known as Eskimos, a term that is now often considered offensive. Historically, their preferred medium was walrus ivory, but sin ...

ists before her is a reflection of the blending of modern and traditional life in Nunavut. Her first drawings in the Kinngait Studios archives — the internationally renowned printmaking studio founded by the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative in 1959 — date from around 1993. Her early works were small, detailed, monochromatic landscape drawings, often depicting rocky, sparsely populated terrains from aerial perspectives. Ashoona's monochromes are densely rendered, stunningly intricate compositions in ink and black

fineliner A marker pen, fine liner, marking pen, felt-tip pen, felt pen, flow marker, sign pen (in South Korea), vivid (in New Zealand), texta (in Australia), sketch pen (in South Asia) or koki (in South Africa), is a pen which has its own ink source ...

. These landscapes were partly realistic in depicting detailed topography around

(Kinngait) and partly fantasy, for example, elements such as stairs that emerge as land formations yet lead nowhere. In sharp contrast to the work of other Kinngait artists, these landscape views were largely devoid of human activity and were also unusual in their introspective quality, seemingly to mirror an interior world while illustrating an exterior one.Christine Lalonde, Acquisition Proposal for Shuvinai Ashoona's ''Untitled (Eden)'', accession #42917, Curatorial File, National Gallery of Canada. Because of her painstaking drawing process, it took several years to develop a body of work substantial enough for exhibition. Although two small etchings were included in the 1997 annual Cape Dorset print collection, her first major exhibition was in 1999, ''Three Women, Three Generations: Drawings by Pitseolak Ashoona, Napatchie Pootoogook and Shuvinai Ashoona'' curated by Jean Blodgett at the

McMichael Canadian Art Collection The McMichael Canadian Art Collection (MCAC) is an art museum in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located on a property in Kleinburg, an unincorporated village in Vaughan. The property includes the museum's main building, a sculpture gar ...

Kleinburg Kleinburg is an unincorporated village in the city of Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. It is home to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, an art gallery with a focus on the Group of Seven, and the Kortright Centre for Conservation. In 2001, the villa ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

. One of six works from this period acquired by the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the ...

, ''Rock Landscape'' was also featured in the

CBC radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...

series, All in a Day (One Treasure at a Time) in 2003. She began using colour in her drawings in the early 2000s, portraying human figures, their shelters, and tools within graphic, imposing topographies, like in the work ''Composition ( Sewage Truck)'' (2007-8) in the Samuel and Esther Sarick Collection of the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Be ...

. Throughout her career the internal cosmology of her works has become more pronounced, with eggs, card suits, globes, and snatches of text surfacing over and over. Her collaborative work (with John Noestheden), ''Earth and Sky'' is a gigantic banner that debuted at

Art Basel Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in Basel, Switzerland; Miami Beach; Hong Kong and from 2022, Paris. Art Basel works in collaboration with the host city's local institutions to help ...

in 2009 in an installation complex called ''Stadthimmel ("Citysky").'' It was also exhibited at the 2012

Biennale of Sydney The Biennale of Sydney is an international festival of contemporary art, held every two years in Sydney, Australia. It is a large and well-attended contemporary visual arts event in the country. Alongside the Venice and São Paulo biennales a ...

"All Our Relations," and at the

Justina M. Barnicke Gallery Hart House is a student activity centre at the University of Toronto. Established in 1919, it is one of the earliest North American student centres, being the location of student debates and conferences since its construction. Hart House was ini ...

at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institu ...

, paired with the Toronto-based artist

Shary Boyle Shary Boyle D.F.A. (born May 26, 1972) is a contemporary Canadian visual artist working in the mediums of sculpture, drawing, painting and performance art. She lives and works in Toronto. Early life and education Boyle was born in the Toronto s ...

. Boyle and Ashoona went on to collaborate on the 2015 travelling exhibition ''Universal Cobra'', building collaborative fantasy worlds, sharing space on the paper. In roughly 2009 Ashoona began working with a motif of worlds, drawing human, animal, and hybrid figures interacting with blue and green planets within fantastical settings, as exhibited in ''Shuvinai's World(s)'' at Feheley Fine Arts in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...

, September 2012.Milroy, Sarah
"Inuit Feminism Goes Global."
''The Globe and Mail''. 8 September 2012. Retrieved 8 March 2015. She has exhibited frequently with Feheley Fine Arts and Marion Scott Gallery in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. Th ...

. ''Mapping Worlds,'' a survey of work by Shuvinai Ashoona, was organized and presented by

The Power Plant The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery is a Canadian non-collecting public contemporary art gallery located at the heart of Toronto, Ontario at the Harbourfront Centre. It is a registered Canadian charitable organization supported by its memb ...

(Toronto) in 2019. Described as her first major solo museum exhibition, ''Mapping Worlds'' continues to circulate in 2020, including at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery at

Concordia University Concordia University (French: ''Université Concordia'') is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University, Concordia is one of the th ...

(Montréal) and at the

Vancouver Art Gallery The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) is an art museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The museum occupies a adjacent to Robson Square in downtown Vancouver, making it the largest art museum in Western Canada by building size. Designed by Fran ...

. Beyond Canada,
Holding on to Universes
'' an exhibition of her lesser known work is being presented in 2020 at the Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Arts in Scotland. Ashoona is the subject of a short documentary film titled ''Ghost Noise'' (2010), directed by

Marcia Connolly Marcia may refer to: People * Marcia (given name) *James Marcia, Canadian psychologist *Stefano Marcia (born 1993), South African Olympic sailor Other uses * Marcia (Beccafumi), ''Marcia'' (Beccafumi), a c. 1519 painting by Domenico Beccafumi * M ...

and had the song "

Midnight Sun The midnight sun is a natural phenomenon that occurs in the summer months in places north of the Arctic Circle or south of the Antarctic Circle, when the Sun remains visible at the local midnight. When the midnight sun is seen in the Arctic, ...

" dedicated to her by musician

Kevin Hearn Kevin Neil Hearn (born July 3, 1969) is a Canadian musician who is a member of Barenaked Ladies, and his own group, Kevin Hearn and Thin Buckle. He primarily plays keyboards and guitars. He is also a member of Rheostatics. Early life Hearn w ...

, who she painted a guitar for. Shuvinai Ashoona was awarded the 2018

Gershon Iskowitz Prize Gershon Iskowitz (1919 – January 26, 1988) was a Canadian artist of Jewish background originally from Poland. Iskowitz was a Holocaust survivor of the Kielce Ghetto, who was liberated at Buchenwald. The circumstances of his early life—th ...

for her outstanding contribution to the visual arts in Canada.

Biography

Artistic career

References--

Further reading