Timootee Pitsiulak 1967–2016
By Ruairi Smith
Tim Pitsiulak, Diving Walrus, 2014, stonecut, 71 x 60cm, (2014 Cape Dorset Prints)
Tim Pitsiulak, nephew of the illustrious Kenojuak Ashevak (one of Canada’s most acclaimed graphic artists), comes from a family of aesthetic imagining and storytelling. An intrepid Inuit artmaker in his own right, Pitsiulak becomes absorbed at an early age by his aunt’s work ethic and creative spirit. (He says: “My inspiration to be an artist comes from my aunt, Kenojuak Ashevak, because she is the oldest and the best.”)
Pitsiulak is born in the south Baffin Island community of Kimmirut (in Inuktitut it is called Kuujjua, or ‘the Great River’). At latitude 62° north, Pitsiulak’s hometown sits four degrees shy of the Arctic Circle and overlooks the Glasgow Inlet, just at the mouth of the long, winding Soper Heritage River. These geographical descriptions are integral to our understanding of a maker who is so attentive to place in his work.
Throughout his magnificent—though altogether too short—career, Pitsiulak bases himself in the ancient artistic community of Kinngait (in Inuktitut it is called ‘high mountain’ or ‘where the hills are,’ formerly known as Cape Dorset). In this epicentre of Inuit drawing and printmaking, Pitsiulak divides his time between artmaking and hunting (he calls the land his “office”). As an
accomplished drawer, carver, sculptor, photographer, and jewellery-maker, his intricate angles and muted hues are contemporary representations of the Arctic. Though, these engagements with the everyday are importantly situated in Inuit cultural heritage.
Pitsiulak the hunter and Pitsiulak the artist are two identities that cannot be so easily disentangled from each another: the hunter’s respect for the natural world and its wildlife is fundamental to the artist’s (and artwork’s) sensibility. In Diving Walrus, Pitsiulak’s walrus contorts with the momentum of his dive. There is a certain placidity in his rounding movement, furthered by Pitsiulak’s simple, bold lines. The walrus is all at once suspended in space and swimming in the cold Arctic waters—an interplay between the real and surreal that is ever-present in the artist’s oeuvre. Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, one of the curators for the Art Gallery of Ontario’s 2018 exhibition “Tunirrusiangit: Kenojuak Ashevak and Tim Pitsiulak,” describes the attachment to place and pleasure in northern life so evident in Pitsiulak’s art: “Tim has this amazing detail to how he describes hunting, the relationship that hunters have with animals, especially the walrus. Also, the detail put into how a hunter prepares, how his boat is packed and what exactly is in there—the attention to detail is beautiful to me.”
Canada—at the whim of southern art consumers and collectors—has a storied history (and present) of romanticizing a stagnant idea of Inuit culture as well as commodifying and controlling Inuit creative expression. Pitsiulak’s work are these flowing design-forward dialogues between traditional ways of life from an inherited past and the experience of living and working in contemporary communities, “with the machines and boats and ATVs that make life in the North work now. He took stock of it all.”
Bibliography
Art Gallery of Ontario. “TUNIRRUSIANGIT: KENOJUAK ASHEVAK AND TIM PITSIULAK.” Exhibitions & Events. Accessed March 12, 2023. https://ago.ca/exhibitions/tunirrusiangit-kenojuak-ashevak-and-tim-pitsiulak.
Dorset Fine Arts. “Tim Pitsiulak.” Artists. Accessed March 12, 2023. https://www.dorsetfinearts.com/tim-pitsiulak
Folger, Napatsi. “Inuit Art and Culture in Dialogue.” National Gallery of Canada Magazine. April 16, 2021.https://www.gallery.ca/magazine/in-the-spotlight/inuit-art-and-culture-in-dialogue.
Huard, Adrienne. “Tunirrusiangit: Kenojuak Ashevak and Tim Pitsiulak.” Canadian Art. June 19, 2018. https://canadianart.ca/reviews/tunirrusiangit-kenojuak-ashevak-and-tim-pitsiulak/.
Kotsyuba, Lera. “Tim Pitsiulak.” InuitArt Quarterly. February 05, 2018. https://www.inuitartfoundation.org/profiles/artist/Tim-Pitsiulak.
Milroy, Sarah. “Hunter Artist.” The Walrus. July/August 2012. https://thewalrus.ca/the-hunter-artist/.
Nunavut News. “Cape Dorset artists take centre stage in Toronto.” Nunavut News. May 29, 2018. https://www.nunavutnews.com/nunavut-news/cape-dorset-artists-take-centre-stage-in-toronto/.