John Tiktak was born at Kareak, a small Padlermiut camp located between Arviat and Whale Cove on the Western shores of Hudson Bay. He lived for a time in Arviat before moving to Rankin Inlet in 1958 to work at the newly-opened nickel mine. After a mining accident in 1959, Tiktak began carving stone regularly. A decade of remarkable art-making followed his mother's death in 1962. Tiktak was the first Inuit artist to be given a full retrospective exhibition, which he attended in Winnipeg in 1970. He continued to live and carve in Rankin Inlet until his death in 1981.

Tiktak is widely admired for his sculptural representations of the human form and face, whose organic shapes and hollow openings have often led to comparisons with the sculptures of Henry Moore. A gentle and highly sensitive man, Tiktak seemed most drawn to the emotional theme of the mother and child, to which he turned repeatedly with often stunning results. In these serene works the child often emerges organically from the mother's back, as though an extension of the latter, expressing in simple and moving terms the maternal bond that is fundamental in Inuit culture.

Although noted primarily as a stone carver, Tiktak participated for a time in the Rankin Inlet ceramic project, producing works in clay alongside Kavik and others.

Tiktak's works are represented in numerous collections, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Heard Museum (Phoenix, AZ), and the National Gallery of Canada.

Selected References

Pure Vision (1986), Norman Zepp
Tiktak: Sculptor from Rankin Inlet (1970), George Swinton
Vision and Form (2003), Robert Kardosh