Shuvinai Ashoona: Early Works

The study of Shuvinai Ashoona’s drawings from 1993 to 2008 offers an intimate look at the very foundations of her artistic approach. These are decades of transition and introspection for the artist. Shuvinai often draws on memories from her twenties, a period when she led a nomadic life with her family. The way she represents the landscape and the Nordic way of life is very personal and free from any specific documentary function. Her depictions of the landscape echo her inner life. The clean contour line, which later came to characterize her work, gradually appeared, eventually completely replacing the pointillist framework of her early drawings. Color makes timid appearances in her art. Shuvinai now lives in Kinngait, on the southern tip of Baffin Island. She produces her work at Kinngait Studios, the artistic arm of the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative, a place that is rapidly becoming as much the center of her professional life as of her community. She depicts her immediate environment, continuing an artistic tradition begun by the Ashoona family, including her grandmother Pitseolak Ashoona (1904 – 1983) and her cousin Annie Pootoogook (1969 – 2016).