North-South Encounter
01 Feb - 08 Mar 2014
Shuvinai Ashoona
Ed Pien
Tim Pitsiulak
Itee Pootoogook
Jutai Toonoo
Papiara Tukiki
My encounter with Cape Dorset began in 2004 by experiencing and falling in love with Shuvinai Ashoona's large-scale tiled drawing depiction of it. The entire scene was obsessively and meticulously rendered using pen and ink that consumed 12 sheets of paper. Made in 2003, Composition (Overlooking Cape Dorset) presents a massive Kinngait (mountain). Dense, dark and animistic, it seems to pour down and invade the rest of the land. Prefabricated box houses dot the nearly deserted settlement around it, linked by wired telephone poles and a scattering of dirt roads.
On November 5th 2012, Pat Feheley, Pamela Meredith, Johannes Zits and I flew from Toronto to Ottawa, then Iqualuit and further north until we touched down in Cape Dorset. On each leg of the journey, we were ushered into progressively smaller planes with yet colder cabins.
Upon arrival, Bill Ritchie (the studio manager at the Kinngait Studio Co-Op) helped me settle down to work among highly respected artists whom I had the honour of previously meeting in Toronto: Shuvinai Ashoona, Itee Pootoogook, Tim Pitsiluak, Jutai Toonoo, and Ohotaq Mikkigak.
The first drawing I attempted is entitled Ice Scraping Drawing Earth. Made with unrestrained gestures and utmost speed, my hands gripped five or so coloured pencils as I lashed at the paper. Making this drawing helped articulate my awe at the elemental gestures, movements and energy of ice moving over land, evidenced by the gouging marks that I saw from the plane's bird's eye view. Two other works, Wind Drawing Water and Light Drawing Cosmos ensued shortly thereafter.
The next set of drawings, Nuna/Land, done with ink and brush, depict chunks of rocks that I first saw in Shuvinai's Composition and then walked on in real life.
The Nuna drawings were followed by the Sea Dogs series. While negotiating the rocky and half-frozen shoreline, I recalled Jimmy Manning once telling me how grown-ups warn youngsters to stay away from the edge flow or else sea dogs would grab and pull them into the water. I imagined the existence of such creatures and their eyes all trained on me as I ventured so dangerously close to the open body of freezing dark water.
Armati developed from another suite of ink drawings that I made, flirting with imaginary creatures that may surely exist within this animistic and vital land.
Ed Drawing Shuvinai Drawing Ed is based on a small gesture drawing realized from a live-drawing session with Shuvinai, Tim and Jutai.
I gratefully acknowledge the TD Bank for funding this Cape Dorset Residency; Scott Mullen and Pamela Merdith, both from TD; Pat Feheley of Feheley Fine Arts, Dorset Fine Arts, William Ritchie, Shuvinai Ashoona, Jutai Toonoo, Jimmy Manning, the staff, other artists at the co-op studios and Johannes Zits. I would also like to sincerely thank the students, teachers and staff at the Peter Pitseolak High School for their enthusiastic effort and support in collectively realizing the Giant Snowy Owl video.
- Ed Pien
Ed Pien
Tim Pitsiulak
Itee Pootoogook
Jutai Toonoo
Papiara Tukiki
My encounter with Cape Dorset began in 2004 by experiencing and falling in love with Shuvinai Ashoona's large-scale tiled drawing depiction of it. The entire scene was obsessively and meticulously rendered using pen and ink that consumed 12 sheets of paper. Made in 2003, Composition (Overlooking Cape Dorset) presents a massive Kinngait (mountain). Dense, dark and animistic, it seems to pour down and invade the rest of the land. Prefabricated box houses dot the nearly deserted settlement around it, linked by wired telephone poles and a scattering of dirt roads.
On November 5th 2012, Pat Feheley, Pamela Meredith, Johannes Zits and I flew from Toronto to Ottawa, then Iqualuit and further north until we touched down in Cape Dorset. On each leg of the journey, we were ushered into progressively smaller planes with yet colder cabins.
Upon arrival, Bill Ritchie (the studio manager at the Kinngait Studio Co-Op) helped me settle down to work among highly respected artists whom I had the honour of previously meeting in Toronto: Shuvinai Ashoona, Itee Pootoogook, Tim Pitsiluak, Jutai Toonoo, and Ohotaq Mikkigak.
The first drawing I attempted is entitled Ice Scraping Drawing Earth. Made with unrestrained gestures and utmost speed, my hands gripped five or so coloured pencils as I lashed at the paper. Making this drawing helped articulate my awe at the elemental gestures, movements and energy of ice moving over land, evidenced by the gouging marks that I saw from the plane's bird's eye view. Two other works, Wind Drawing Water and Light Drawing Cosmos ensued shortly thereafter.
The next set of drawings, Nuna/Land, done with ink and brush, depict chunks of rocks that I first saw in Shuvinai's Composition and then walked on in real life.
The Nuna drawings were followed by the Sea Dogs series. While negotiating the rocky and half-frozen shoreline, I recalled Jimmy Manning once telling me how grown-ups warn youngsters to stay away from the edge flow or else sea dogs would grab and pull them into the water. I imagined the existence of such creatures and their eyes all trained on me as I ventured so dangerously close to the open body of freezing dark water.
Armati developed from another suite of ink drawings that I made, flirting with imaginary creatures that may surely exist within this animistic and vital land.
Ed Drawing Shuvinai Drawing Ed is based on a small gesture drawing realized from a live-drawing session with Shuvinai, Tim and Jutai.
I gratefully acknowledge the TD Bank for funding this Cape Dorset Residency; Scott Mullen and Pamela Merdith, both from TD; Pat Feheley of Feheley Fine Arts, Dorset Fine Arts, William Ritchie, Shuvinai Ashoona, Jutai Toonoo, Jimmy Manning, the staff, other artists at the co-op studios and Johannes Zits. I would also like to sincerely thank the students, teachers and staff at the Peter Pitseolak High School for their enthusiastic effort and support in collectively realizing the Giant Snowy Owl video.
- Ed Pien