Shuvinai Ashoona

Born in 1961 in Kinngait (Cape Dorset), Nunavut, Shuvinai Ashoona is a third-generation Inuk artist whose graphite-pencil and ink works have helped to revolutionize Inuit art by redefining its conventions. A pioneer in depicting contemporary Arctic life, she is celebrated both in Canada and on the international scene for her inventive graphic approach: her large-scale formats, her iconography that melds Inuit tradition with North American popular culture, and her collaborations with Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists.

In her exuberant compositions, she brings her mystical visions to life—at times grotesque, unsettling, playful, or phantasmagorical—and offers a sensitive, almost cinematic perspective on the Arctic’s rapidly changing landscape. Her drawings celebrate the richness of Inuit culture while also bearing witness to the profound upheavals experienced by this Northern people, who in less than a century have shifted from a nomadic to a sedentary way of life.