About
this Publication
Over
the course of a career spanning more than three
decades, Netsilik artist Nick Sikkuark has produced
some of the most original and inventive sculptures
ever to come out of the Canadian North. Now in
his early sixties, Sikkuark stands as the pre-eminent
artist in the central Arctic region known as the
Kitikmeot, an area renowned for its expressive
and highly imaginative art.
This small but valuable, beautifully illustrated
publication is the first to focus solely on Sikkuark’s
art. Published to accompany an exhibition at
the Marion Scott Gallery in May 2003, The Art
of Nick Sikkuark features sculpture produced
within the last two to three years, many representing
fantastical shamans. Constructed from organic
materials such as whalebone, sinew, caribou antler
and musk-ox hair, the resulting images are nonetheless
rather literal in their style when compared to
the artist’s more bizarre mixed media assemblages
of the 1980s and early 90s.
In a further departure from the recent past,
the catalogue also contains a selection of new
drawings, the first Sikkuark has made in nearly
thirty years. Richly coloured and accompanied
by short, sometimes humorous captions, these
latest works on paper provide a fascinating new
view of the artist and his culture.
In an introductory essay, curator Robert Kardosh
offers an interpretation of both Sikkuark’s
remarkable life and his equally remarkable art,
and of the relation between them. Kardosh’s
sensitive discussion of the works helps put them
in their art-historical and cultural contexts,
while serving as a useful guide to the exhibition.
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Gallery Information
MARION SCOTT GALLERY
2423 GRANVILLE STREET
VANCOUVER, BC CANADA V6H 3G5
TEL: 604.685.1934
FAX: 604.685.1890
ART@MARIONSCOTTGALLERY.COM |
