Introduction

For more than four decades, Inuit artists in the remote northern community of Baker Lake have been enriching Canada's cultural and artistic mosaic with their distinctive sensibilities and powerful visions. Working in a variety of media including sculpture, textiles, printmaking, drawing and painting, the community's artists have produced a dynamically evolving body of imagery that reflects the twin forces of innovation and tradition.

This winter, the Marion Scott Gallery proudly celebrates Baker Lake's central and enduring relationship with the medium of drawing on paper. Opening January 10 and continuing through February 8, Paper North: Drawings from Baker Lake brings together 30 drawings by sixteen artists, with works dating from the 1960s to the present. The exhibition includes images by such renowned early pioneers of the form as Luke Anguhadluq, Simon Tookoome and the legendary Jessie Oonark, alongside contributions from a subsequent generation of artists, many of whom are the sons and daughters of the first wave.

Many of the works in the current exhibition are drawn from the printmaking studio's archives, and viewers familiar with prints from the community will recognize some of the images, presented here for the first time in their original drawn form. Taken as a whole, the works trace the evolution of the artists' styles over a forty year period, ranging from early narrative works produced with simple graphite to bold abstract experiments created with colour media including paper collage and watercolour.