Carving a Brighter Future with Kenojuak Ashevak

Exploring the Global Affairs Canada Visual Art Collection

Jan 28, 2022

by Bob Rae

Works by Inuit artists adorn the walls of Canadian missions and official residences around the world. During my high school years, I was lucky enough to be a student in Geneva where my father was Ambassador, and I can remember the interest that visitors had in both the steatite carvings and prints that were so striking. 

As a university student, I worked one summer in Kujjuaq, Nunavik, QC, and bought my first steatite piece from a local artist, depicting a hunter lifting a seal out of the ice. I have it to this day.  

Several years later, my wife Arlene and I visited Mittimatalik (Pond Inlet), NU, and met artists from the local co-op studio. It was so exciting to see the continuing vitality and dedication of artists working in a distinctly Inuit and contemporary art tradition. 

Coming to New York in 2020, we were excited to see the fine art, and we were not disappointed. One work that welcomes every visitor to the official residence is a print by Kenojuak Ashevak, CC, RCA (1927–2013). Ashevak is one of the most accomplished and well-known Inuit artists of the twentieth century whose bold style and sense of humour shaped the contemporary Inuit art aesthetic still practised today. Her colourful arctic bird designs continue to foster cross-cultural exchange by conveying Inuit oral histories and perspectives to those beyond the Arctic region.  

Untitled #29 is an engraving that exemplifies her use of bold forms and strong emblematic compositions, influenced by her early sewing and sealskin appliqué designs. Transformation is a central theme within Inuit culture, conveyed in multifaceted ways within Inuit art traditions. In this artwork, for example, multiple hybrid bird-human beings surround a smiling sun. The work likely depicts shamans or supernatural beings in the process of transforming. It is at once bold, balanced and playful.   

During her lifetime, Ashevak travelled extensively as an ambassador for Inuit art: in 1969, she collaborated to develop a mural for the Canadian Pavilion at Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan; in the 1980s and 1990s she travelled to Holland, South Korea, Germany and the United States to attend exhibition openings and meet with world leaders.

Today, Ashevak’s artworks continue this important work through their display in Canadian embassies around the world. They encourage Canadian and locally engaged staff to learn about Inuit culture and their histories and foster important discussions between diplomats and visiting officials pertaining to the recognition of Indigenous Peoples and their rights, the Arctic and the impacts of climate change on both the environment and cultures. 

Ashevak was an artist of immense talent and international renown, and her willingness to share her culture and art with the world speaks to her resilience and vision of a better future. As we strive to honour the rights, perspectives and prosperity of Indigenous Peoples in Canada and around the world, Ashevak’s print in the Canadian official residence is a powerful reminder and inspiration to continue this important work. 

 

—Bob Rae is the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations in New York. He served as Premier of Ontario from 1990-1995, interim Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 2011-2013 and was appointed as Canada’s Special Envoy to Myanmar (2017) and Canada’s Special Envoy on Humanitarian and Refugee Issues (2020). Mr. Rae taught law and public policy at the University of Toronto and was a partner and senior counsel to the law firm OKT LLP, specializing in indigenous law and constitutional issues. Bob Rae is a Privy Councillor, a Companion of the Order of Canada, a member of the Order of Ontario. 

This piece is part of a collaborative project between Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and the Inuit Art Foundation that brings together Inuk writers and Canadian ambassadors to discuss pieces of Inuit art from the GAC collection, on display at Canadian embassies around the world.