Artist Info
Pitseolak ᐱᓯᐅᓚ Ashoona
Pitseolak Ashoona was a prominent graphic artist who worked primarily in felt tip markers. She was born to Timungiak and Ottochie while they were was passing through Nottingham Island, NU on their journey from Salluit (Sugluk) to Baffin Island around 1904. Most of her childhood was spent living in camps around Iqaluit (Frobisher Bay) and Kinngait (Cape Dorset). When her father died suddenly, her family arranged a marriage for Pitseolak with a hunter named Ashoona in 1922.
Part of the first generation of self-taught artists to making drawings for the print co-op, Ashoona depicted traditional camp society and used art to share knowledge that might otherwise disappear. She was also one of the first Inuit artists to explore autobiographical themes in her work. Ashoona produced somewhere between 7,000 and 9,000 drawings, with over 200 of them made into prints. Pitseolak’s efforts in developing her visual expression were relatable to those of a formally trained artist and brought recognition to the validity of Inuit systems of learning.
Known as a great matriarch of Inuit art, Ashoona encouraged her family to explore their own artistic pursuits. Pitseolak gave birth to seventeen children, with only six living with her until adulthood. All of her sons, Namoonie, Qaqaq (Kaka), Kumwartok (Konwartok), Kiugak (Kiawak), and Ottochie became sculptors and her only daughter, Napachie (later known as Napachie Pootoogook), became a skilled graphic artist like her mother. The Ashoona legacy continued with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren who are engaged in the arts, including Ohito Ashoona (sculptor) Annie Pootoogook (graphic artist), Siassie Kenneally (graphic artist), Shuvinai Ashoona (graphic artist), and Goota Ashoona (sculptor), to name a few.
Ashoona’s drawings and prints were part of over 100 exhibitions during her lifetime. She became a member of the Royal Canadian Academy in 1974, was a recipient of a Canada Council Senior Arts grant in 1975, and received the Order of Canada in 1977. Ashoona’s work was shown recently at ULAG in the exhibition ᐃᓄᐃᑦ in 2017 and in the 2020 exhibition Unikkausivut: Stories from the North.
