Puvirnituq is one of the 15 Inuit communities in Nunavik in the Northern Quebec, well known by non Inuit people as Povungnituk or POV; about 1400 people live there.
In Inuktitut, « puvirnituq » means « it smells rotten meat ». Two explanations are commonly given for the name of this village, according to Taamusi Qumaq, [...]

In the Canadian Arctic, printmaking began in 1956 in Kinngait (Nunavut) thanks to the strong involvement of the Inuit people who live there added to James Houston’s support. The first annual print collection has been designed after two years of experimentation leading to elaborating a unique printing technique : stonecut.
Derived from the Japanese woodcut process, [...]

 
Kinngait is an Inuit community located in Nunavut (Baffin Island) 
The Kinngait Studios
More than 1200 people live in Kinngait and most families count with one’s one artist or more as carver, printer or drawer. The Kinngait hamlet is well-know on the international art market as the major art centre in the Canadian Arctic.
in the Canadian Arctic [...]

I never learn how to speak English. Also, I was never taught how to be an artist, but I’m not a really good artist, but I have tried. [...] When I was a boy, I used to try to do carving. I only started drawing seriously when drawing was encouraged in Pangnirtung by Gary Magee.
Before [...]

This week, I let you share the extract of a text written by Minnie Aodla Freeman, an Inuit woman, accomplished writer and translator:
Although I am neither an artist nor famous, I was involved with these artists [in Kinngait] as an Inuit writer. […] The woman artists were all born here or in the outlying camps. [...]

Kananginak Pootoogook : “We like to keep our culture through carvings and prints. Those art pieces are very valuable : they tell of the past.” (1)
Pitaloosie Saila : “You don’t just do drawings […] you express yourself. It is also a way of life, a part of life. Life is sometimes heavy […] you have [...]

The representation of a mother and her child in sculpture is not a frequent subject in the Inuit art contrary to the qallunaat art (not Inuit) where this topic appears in the religious as profane representations. This theme remains relatively recent in the history of Inuit art although it is more present in contemporary graphics [...]

In the Inuit society of past as of the present, tuktuit ” caribous ” (tuktu in the singular) occupy an important place. In the contemporary art, in sculpture as in pictorial art (painting, drawing, print), the caribou is one of the most represented games with the polar bear and the seal.
The caribou remains mostly represented [...]

Polar bears - nanuit in inuktitut (singular: nanuq) - are omnipresent in the Inuit culture and the daily life, formerly as today. It is not thus surprising that the bear is a subject of preference for artists in all domains such as carving as graphic arts.
Who saw contemporary Inuit carvings immediately represents himself a polar [...]

Artistic diversity
The contemporary Inuit artistic production in the Arctic is extremely rich and varied considering the used practices and techniques as individual and local styles.
Each artist works according to his/her own individual and family experience which inspires its creations. The iconographic subjects, the styles and the way of representations which result from it determine the [...]