Exquisite Arts Magazine Vol 6- Summer Issue- July 2017 | Page 30

Wica’heala kin
the old men
Heya’ pelo’
say
Maka’ kin
the earth
Lece’la
only
Tehan yunke’lo
endures
Eha’ pelo’
you spoke
Ehan’kecon
truly
Wica’ yaka pelo’ you are right. Told by Used-as-a-Shield
(Teton Sioux)
In November 2006, a 37-year-old Inuit girl entered the
art world hall of fame when her work won her the 2006
prestigious Sobey Art Award and took home $50,000.
According to the jury members the Cape Dorset,
Nunavut, Canadian girl had an exceptional ability to
reflect and balance the current moment of the aboriginal
traditions and modern drawing. The Inuit girl was
dexterously helping in the re-examination of modernism
revealing the hybrid contemporary traits characterised by
diverse masterful celebratory points in her art. people whose customs, while still un-extinguished,
must contend and live with modern realities from
the media, manufactured goods to technology.
Before the award, Pootoogook had received a
special invitation to exhibit in Kassel, Germany, at
the prestigious 2007 Documenta Art Show that
happens every five years, the first for an Inuit artist.
By the time the world came calling in 2006, the 37-
year-old had only been an artist for nine years.
Sobey Art Award is an annual Canadian award that
guarantees the winner $50,000 presented to a fortunate
artist below 40 years of age who had, in the immediate
last 18 months, displayed his/her work in a commercial
or public gallery. Unabashed depictions
The artist in a changing world
The girl is Annie Pootoogook, a Canadian Inuit artist.
Her drawings perfectly capture a changing culture of a
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Annie Pootoogook brought her art to life using
coloured pencils and pen and unabashedly depicted
the contemporary Inuit daily struggles and sojourn
in a changing world. She followed the sulijuk
(which means “it’s true”) tradition gleaned from her
mother and set off by her grandmother. In their
lives, the three generation of Pootoogook women
had depicted life in Canadian North as they saw it
adding very little in their compositions.