ᐸᐱᐊᕋ ᑐᑭᑭ
PAPIARA TUKIKI
ᐸᐱᐊᕋ ᑐᑭᑭ
PAPIARA TUKIKI
1942-2023
Inuit
Kinngait, Dorset Island, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada
Graphic Arts
Papiara Tukiki's works expressed her keen fascination with the animals and plants she shared her arctic home with and how they managed to survive and form relationships with others in the far north.
This fascination developed at a young age from her experiences living in the outpost camp of Nuwata in Nunavut, Canada. After settling in Kinngait in 1962, she became heavily involved with the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative, where she would go on to produce a multitude of prints though their studio and for their annual print collections during her lifetime.
Her skilfully accomplished portraits and landscapes are often filled with a sentimentality which calls the viewer towards garnering great affection for the subjects of her Acrtic encounters be they running lemmings, sea bugs, jumping hares, fluffy caterpillars, sculpin or a whole host of migratory animals which in times past she would have followed across tundra and mountains. Her earlier works of the 1960's are sought after for their finely drawn depictions of transforming creatures and spirits
