Radar 2025 – National Edition

SAIMAIYU AKESUK

Born in 1988, Saimaiyu Akesuk lives and works in Cape Dorset, NU. While attending classes at the Nunavut Teaching Education Program, she was encouraged by Ningiukulu Teevee to begin drawing and the two have since continued to develop their practices at Kinngait Studios. Saimaiyu’s graphic compositions frequently feature birds and bears and are characterized by bold, dynamic simplicity. Comical and bright, Akesuk’s work reflects the sensibilities of a new generation of Dorset artists.  

JORDAN BENNETT

Jordan Bennett is L’nu (Mi’kmaq), from Stephenville Crossing, Newfoundland. Having a methodology that is guided by the land of his ancestors, his practice utilizes sculpture, painting, immersive installations, and sound to explore land, language, the act of visiting and familial histories. Jordan has taken part in over 100 exhibitions nationally and internationally and has received accolades including the 2020 winner of the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia Masterworks Arts Award. 

DELALI COFIE

Delali Cofie is a Ghanaian-Nigerian photographer currently living and working in Toronto. Through storytelling he engages in fine art, documentary, and fashion photography. His personal work presents subtle beauty whilst exploring themes of self-formation and the process of becoming. Frequently creating work between his native city of Accra and current city of Toronto, his practice tells a tale of two places, linked by a diasporic thread.  Cofie is a recent graduate of OCAD University, where he was the recipient of multiple program awards including the Barbara Astman and Peter Sramek photography awards and the OCAD U Medal. 

LAINA GEETAH

Laina Geetah was born in 1998 in Iqaluit, Nunavut to a large family in which many members distinguished themselves through artistic practices. Self-taught, Laina began drawing at the age of 18 and has since continued to refine her singular style. In her work, familiar Inuit art motifs like the owl and walrue are adapted to a contemporary context. Clean, fine lines characterize her work, which tends towards a muted palette and clever compositions that manipulate our perception of the natural world.  

MAJORIE LABRÈQUE-LEPAGE

Majorie Labrèque-Lepage is a multidisciplinary artist and entrepreneur based in Montreal. She holds a bachelor’s degree in fashion business and design and is currently pursuing an MFA at Concordia University. Her work is rooted in an ecofeminist perspective and explores paths to a reinvented future, following the wistful threads of both comfort and catharsis. Her creations—ranging from painting to textiles and sculpture—present raw, luminous scenes in which human, animal, plant, and hybrid figures evolve in tangled, metaphorical settings that combine aesthetic forms and everyday objects.  

XÉNIA LUCIE LAFFELY

Across hybrid works, Xénia Lucie Laffely‘s practice questions notions of domestic space, digital culture, vanity, failure, consumerism and lesbian love. Combining traditional techniques, digital aesthetics and autofiction, she places material at the heart of her process with textiles, metal, wood, and ceramics forming an intuitive visual language. At once familiar, sentimental, and unsettling, the narratives she weaves oscillate between oblivion and hallucination, dream and nightmare. Born in Switzerland, Xénia currently lives and works in Montreal where she is completing an MFA at Concordia University. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in textile design and has recently exhibited at the Darling Foundry (Montreal), the Kunstraum Niederösterreich (Vienna), the Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam), and the Last Tango Gallery (Zurich).   

ARJUN LAL

Arjun Lal is an interdisciplinary artist based between Kjipuktuk (Halifax) and Berlin. Through playful, fantastical, and confrontational explorations of identity, embodiment, and cultural trajectory, they use sculpture, installation, and performance to envision new ways of being in the world. Lal integrates symbols, colours, and shapes informed by their perspective as a queer Indian-diasporic person. They draw from fragments of conversations, gestures, and dreams to create immersive, engaging, and thought-provoking environments and experiences. A graduate of NSCAD, their work has been featured in exhibitions and publications nationally and internationally. 

JEAN-BENOIT POULIOT

Jean-Benoit Pouliot’s work is structured around issues linked to composition and the reading and mediatisation of the image in painting. Exploring the modalities of an artwork’s reception in the digital age, he takes a particular interest in the painted surface. Characteristically abstract, his works superimpose planes and networks in which thin layers of accumulated material generate immaterial spaces. He stretches the physical limits of painting, altering and transgressing his images and their forms. A self-taught artist, Pouliot explored engraving, light, and collaborative music production before concentrating on painting. His work has been presented in exhibitions in New York, California, and Quebec and his pieces can be found in important private and institutional collections.  

PALAYA QIATSUQ

Palaya Qiatsuq was born in Cape Dorset and began carving around 1977. He was taught by his father Lutka Qiatsuk (himself a well-known sculptor and printmaker) and has since developed a unique style that reveals his mastery of balance in multi-media compositions. His works frequently depict animals, hybrid creatures from Inuit mythology, and scenes of transformation and shamanism. Working primarily in soapstone and bone, Palaya’s works have been exhibited across Canada as well as in the USA, France, and Germany.  

PITSIULAQ QIMIRPIQ

Based in Cape Dorset, Pitsiulaq (Pitseolak) Qimirpik creates both sculpture and works on paper and has distinguished himself as an apprentice (his father is renowned carver Kelly Qimirpik) and contemporary artist in his own right. Marrying pop-culture signifiers with traditional carving techniques, he is among a new generation of Inuit artists challenging their position in history and re-imagining Northern aesthetics. Well-versed in the practices of past generations of Dorset artists, Qimirpiq continues to represent recognizable figures like muskox, walruses, and dancers without hesitating to animate their presence with musical references and comical arrangements. Painting directly on sculpture and drawing in a dense, bright style all his own, Qimirpiq has exhibited across Canada with Galerie COA, Chiguer Contemporary, and Feheley Fine Arts.  

CAITLIN THOMPSON

Thinking about processes, materials, and histories, Caitlin Thompson explores similarities in the repetitive, machine-body labour of embroidery and animation.  Looking at these two processes in tandem, she studies the loops present in both artforms. Her sequences regenerate and propel themselves, like flowers blooming and dying, and in the many hours spent embroidering and sewing, she considers the life cycles contained within her materials. Thompson grew up in rural east-central Alberta and completed a BFA in Sculpture in 2007. Following studies in Concordia’s MFA program, she returned to Alberta in a cycle of journey and return. She has participated in residencies at the National Film Board and Est-Nord-Est, and has exhibited at the Esker Foundation and Museo Textil de Oaxaca among others. While maintaining a studio practice, Caitlin also works as an arts educator and gallery preparator.