Artist Info
Germaine Arnaktauyok
Germaine Arnaktauyok is a skilled graphic artist from Iglulik (Igloolik), NU. Arnaktauyok was born in a camp near Iglulik in 1946 to sculptors Therese Nattok and Isidore Iytok. Arnaktauyok lived a traditional nomadic lifestyle with her parents until she was nine and was sent to the residential school in Chesterfield Inlet. While at the school, a nun recognized her skill and began teaching her to paint. By the age of eleven, Arnaktauyok had sold her first painting. Part of the first generation to attend the residential school, Arnaktauyok recognized the trauma of the experience, explaining that she only saw her parents during the summer and that she does not remember the early years at the residential school.
Arnaktauyok attended high school in Churchill, Manitoba in the late 1960s. During this time, George Swinton, the Dean of the University of Manitoba School of Fine Art saw her artwork and invited her to attend university there. She went on to spend two and a half years there and later went to Algonquin College in Pembroke, ON, making her one of the first Inuit artists to be formally trained in European-style painting. In 1992, Arnaktauyok moved back to Iqaluit to work at the Frobisher Bay Arts and Crafts Centre, completing a printmaking course at the Arctic College, where she learned metal engraving and etching. Her work is best known for its depictions of Inuit myths, legends, traditional ways of life, stories and feminist narratives focusing on birth and motherhood, emphasizing larger cultural and political issues, such as the continued impacts of colonization.
To commemorate the founding of the territory of Nunavut in 1999, Arnaktauyok designed a special edition two-dollar coin for the Royal Canadian Mint. In addition to her artistic pursuits, Arnaktauyok has worked as a children’s book author and illustrator. Most recently, her work has been featured in the ULAG exhibition, From the Collection, in 2019.
