Shuvinai Ashoona's Surreal World

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Shuvinai Ashoona, "A For Sure World," 2009

coloured pencil and ink on paper, 19" x 25 " Courtesy of Dorset Fine Arts

Surreal, dream-like, spiritual and shrewdly insightful are descriptions that come to mind when viewing work by Inuit artist Shuvinai Ashoona. All these qualities are evident in A For Sure World at the Marion Scott Gallery, Ashoona’s first major solo exhibition in Vancouver in more than a decade. Although the show was to end Nov. 25, many of its 35 works on paper are being held over until at least Jan. 6.

Ashoona, like her late cousin, Annie Pootoogook, makes drawings that can be amusing but pointed, even tragic, commentaries on life in the North. The piece from which the show takes its name is like something out of a comic book, with the words, “a for sure world” drawn in coloured pencil. Between the large letters are hands holding cheques, as well as several globes, a signature symbol for Ashoona. Playing cards cascade down from the top – a nod, perhaps, to the capricious impact of business on Inuit art. A closer look reveals that Ashoona plays little tricks where the address of the cheque writer is normally placed. On one she writes, “check book not drawing books,” as if admonishing herself. Other blank cheques are reconfigured with teasing words and one offers an inside joke about her gallerist.

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Shuvinai Ashoona, "Love of the Co-op," 2010

coloured pencil and ink on paper, 25" x 19" (courtesy of Dorset Fine Arts)

A drawing from 2010, Love of the Co-op, pokes fun at the Cape Dorset art market, which has been served by the West Baffin Island Eskimo Co-operative (now known as the Kinngait Co-operative) since the late 1950s. The co-op provides studio space for locals to make art, and also sells their productions to collectors around the world, distributing some of the money back to artists. Love of the Co-op depicts three artists holding lottery-sized cheques, one worth “thirty-nine zillion dollars,” as Ashoona wishfully notes.

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Shuvinai Ashoona, "untitled (aquarium)," 2017

oil stick on paper, 51" x 182" (courtesy of Dorset Fine Arts)

Ashoona, elected as a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2016, includes works from the last 15 years that vary in size and shape, but are mostly executed in coloured pencil. A few are made with oil sticks, demonstrating the medium’s brilliant colors and painterly qualities. “Shuvinai started working with oil stick a few years ago and didn’t take to it at first,” says gallery associate Charles Bateman. “But she returned to it.” Looking at Untitled (aquarium), made in 2017, is like being immersed in a lush commercial tank populated by an orange octopus-like creature and a bright red fish with a flowing tail. Oddly, there’s a seal in one corner. It’s all par for the course in Ashoona’s imaginative world.

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Shuvinai Ashoona, "Bird Bones," 2015

ink on paper, 18" x 96" (courtesy of Dorset Fine Arts)

Ashoona can shift between widely differing artistic treatments. Bird Bones, an intricate 2015 ink drawing on an elongated rectangle of white paper, underlines this diversity. It also speaks to her deep connection with nature, which viewers can vicariously experience through her work. Overall, this show is an intriguing way to explore the mysteries of Ashoona’s North.