Welcome to the retail virtual exhibition Shades of the Inuit Imagination, the Works of Contemporary Cape Dorset Artists and Their Predecessors. In order to highlight differences between the early years of the Modern Era of Inuit Art and the contemporary period, eight general themes have been chosen: Living in Village and in Town; Clothing; Fishing, Sedna, a Dog and a Mother Owl; From Natural Exuberance to the Joy of Music; Transformation; Hands and Head; Boots and a Spider, and The Wild. Two graphic works (an older print and one from 2008), two drawings (an earlier work and one that is more recent) and two contemporary sculptures are all juxtaposed against each other on each theme.
One of the great values of the Cape Dorset drawings stems from the fact that they constitute the submissions by the print artists of the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative for the Annual Graphics and occasional Spring Prints collections. These highly imaginative and professionally rendered drawings (which are one of a kind) have also exceptional merit in that they reflect not only the artists' creative vision but also their historical and sociological reality.
This gathering together of forty-eight original works in three different media, covering over
three decades of dynamic productivity on the part of the Inuit artists of Cape Dorset, allows many of the artistic and the thematic contrasts and parallels to be noted. The themes elaborated in the prints, drawings and carvings are juxtaposed against each other, traditional approaches are juxtaposed against cutting-edge perspectives and the visual impact of two-dimensional works is juxtaposed against that of the sculptures. As a result, we cannot help being impressed by the consistent artistic excellence before us, no matter the medium.
Images of the ingenuity that made the traditional lifestyle even possible are juxtaposed against touching images of archetypal human habit, and all these prints and drawings are juxtaposed against sculptures that comment palpably on a new and less harmonious social order.
Artistically masterful stonecut images printed using few colors are juxtaposed against the luminosity of recent, finely designed copper etchings printed with aquatint. Shamanism is juxtaposed against modern spirituality, and even against introversion or extreme abstraction. In this exhibition-sale, the physical and the psychological sides of life and the relationship between nature and man are addressed from a seemingly endless series of perspectives, which are furnished sumptuously by this significant collection, ranging from traditional to contemporary offerings covering over thirty years of intense social change and artistic activity in Cape Dorset.
May this presentation, showcasing so many of the shades of the Inuit imagination, provoke deeper analyses of these works and consequently reinforce our appreciation of universal human values.