Caribou Antler Sculptures from Kangiqsualujjuaq
Located on the eastern shore of Ungava Bay in Nunavik (northern Quebec), Kangiqsualujjuaq (formerly George River) began specializing in caribou antler sculptures since the 1970’s. « What we show in our carvings is the life we have lived in the past right up today. We show the truth. » say Inuit artists. Kangiqsualujjuaq means in inuktitut (Inuit language) «very large bay»; about 750 people (2006) live in this Inuit community.
The importance of depicting the reality of daily Inuit existence, as well as events described in Inuit oral history, mythology and personal recollection, is a current that has run through fifty years of Nunavik sculpture. Artworks from Kangiqsualujjuaq have sometimes a tendency toward distortion and expressionism in human and spirit faces and bodies inspired by shamanism and spirits’ transformation scenes.
Although the international art market values the achievement of “classic” 1950s Nunavik art, it very much encourages and rewards innovation today. Inuit have been making antler sculptures for centuries related to shamanism and nomadic way of life. Thus moving from winter camp to summer camp, traditional ivory carvings and antler sculptures were on small size. But the size of artworks significantly increased, both linked to the development of the Inuit art market on an international scale as well as the arctic communities’ establishment and forced sedentarization.
Antler is commonly utilized material: Inuit hunt caribous to eat their meet, to wear their skin, to change their antler into tools and sculptures etc…; caribou shed their antlers each year.
Inuit artists often combine antlers with stone, whalebone or ivory. Caribou antlers (like ivory) are usually worked with smaller flexible-shaft grinders, saws, small diamond files, and sharp knives. Antler sculpture is also practiced in Nunavut and on a pan-Inuit scale, like Greenlandic Tupilaq.
For more information about the community and its artists, see this web site :
www.nvkangiqsualujjuaq.ca
April 6th, 2008 at 2:35 am
I am a collector of Tivi Etook’s work. Presently I own 14 of his prints. I would greatly appreciate to be put in contact with an individual or dealer that might carry some of the prints that I do not already own. I would also love to receive a current photo of him if that is at all possible. Above all I would love to be able to communicate with him and tell him how much I enjoy owning and seeing his work every day. I admire his sense of humor and his skill at capturing so much of the character of the animals and personalities of the Torngats in his work.
Sincerely, Ditte Wolff