SHUVINAI ASHOONA (1961-) KINNGAIT (CAPE DORSET)
Untitled (In the Studio), 2012
coloured pencil on paper, 24 x 47 in (61 x 119.4 cm), framed
signed and dated, "ᓱᕕᓇᐃ / ᐊᓱᓇ / 2012".

Provenance
Feheley Fine Arts, Toronto;
Acquired from the above by John and Joyce Price, Seattle, 2016.

Exhibitions
Ottawa, Carleton University Art Gallery, 2013, Dorset Seen.

Publications
Reproduced in Leslie Boyd and Sandra Dyck, Dorset Seen, (Ottawa: Carleton University Art Gallery, 2017), illustrated on front and back covers of the catalogue as Untitled [People lining up to sell artwork].

This lovingly rendered drawing captures the artists and staff of the Kinngait Studios where Shuvinai Ashoona works daily. Aside from her family, the studio is her world, and she often depicts her peers either in a group portrait such as this, individually, or in small groups. Shuvinai, like many of her colleagues, has a strong artistic heritage going back generations. Her style and subject matter, however, are unique and immediately recognizable. More widely known for her fantastic, dreamlike creatures and almost surreal mutations, Shuvinai also often creates portraits of the people in her world – both from the North and the South.

This is a large format drawing, suitable for the subject matter that captures many figures. Along with her colleagues in the Kinngait Studios, Shuvinai quickly adapted to large-scale drawing and continues to excel in this format. The people in this drawing are presented in a row, aside from two elders who are seated beside a kneeling figure. Many are recognizable to those familiar, and all wear an Inuktitut name tag and are therefore identifiable to the rest of us. The varied colours are muted and the faces almost expressionless, staring in the same direction at something seemingly far away. This, and the frieze-like composition, lend a timeless quality to the drawing.

References: For a similar composition of standing figures by the artist see Sandra Dyck, Shuvinai Ashoona: Drawings, (Ottawa: Carleton University Art Gallery, 2012), cat. 12; Gaëtane Verna, Shuvinai Ashoona: Mapping Worlds, (Toronto: Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, 2021), fig. 178, p. 178-9; Other examples of Shuvinai’s original drawings are reproduced in Gerald McMaster, ed., Inuit Modern: The Samuel and Esther Sarick Collection, (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2010), pp. 200-203.