The next exhibition at Galerie Hugues Charbonneau will be entirely dedicated to Shuvinai Ashoona and her cousin Padloo Samayualie. We wish to highlight both the complex individual practices of these two Kinngait (Nunavut) based artists and their inspiring recent collaborative works.
Shuvinai Ashoona and Padloo Samayualie
SHUVINAI ASHOONA
A 3rd generation artist, Shuvinai Ashoona (b. 1961) has gained international recognition for her fantastical renderings of the natural world and striking depictions of contemporary Inuit life. Combining references to Indigenous cosmologies and her youth on the territory now known as Dorset Island, Ashoona fuses scenes of daily life with futurist visions of species interdependence. She has had solo exhibitions at the Power Plant Toronto and ICA Miami and was awarded the special mention of the jury at the 2022 Venice Biennale.
PADLOO SAMAYAULIE
Padloo Samayualie (b. 1977) began drawing after participating in a workshop in Banff in 2001. She has since gone one to study jewelry-making and animation and was selected for an artist residency at the Brooklyn Museum in 2016. From a family of well-respected sculptors, Padloo’s works often feature architectural or natural details and have a strong graphic quality.
COLLABORATION
While cooperative printmaking has flourished at Kinngait studios since the 1950s, Ashoona and Samayaulie’s joint drawings mark a renewed emphasis on collaborative practice. Since 2022, Ashoona and Samayualie have created bold works on paper that evince a shared sense of the contemporary Inuit imaginary.